I & 5^ *2 * 7«- INTRODUCTION xxix Churchill 1 family to King James II, perhaps, there is nowa- days a certain irony about such lines as these : Thy 2 fav'rites grow not up by fortune's sport, Or from the crimes, or follies of a court ; On the firm basis of desert they rise, From long-try'd faith, and friendship's holy tyes. 8 After all, however, this is only such formal panegyric as cus- tom demanded ; a poet of Queen Anne's time would have been little more conscious of its cant than we are of the affec- tionate insincerity involved in the prefatory address to every letter we write. The British cant which pervades The Cam- paign, indeed, resembles that which pervaded the passages about liberty in the Letter from Italy. To foreigners it is bound to seem insincere, just as our own talk about the bless- ings of freedom seems to foreigners far from heartfelt. The truth is that Englishmen and Americans alike are at once very morally disposed and rather slow of wit; when they believe a thing right, they believe that they ought to assert it true ; and if an assertion be right, the truth of it seems to follow. Meanwhile they never think of inquiring whether a comparison of the assertion with observable facts will confirm it. Where- fore those who do not understand them are apt to call them hypocritical, when really they are only innocently stupid in sincere moral fervor. The Campaign thus shows Addison profoundly British. Meanwhile, more than what we have seen before, it shows him quietly sensible. Macaulay points out the pseudo-mytho- logical absurdities into which seventeenth- century panegyric was apt to run. Yet Addison is throughout direct, sensible, 1 Marlborough's sister was the king's mistress ; and Marlborough himself deserted James when fortune turned to William. 2 " Happy Britain's." 8 Campaign, 11. 37-40. See p. 8. xxx INTRODUCTION dignified ; what he really gives us is a sustained versified nar- rative of fact, adequately described in its own closing passage : Thus wou'd I fain Britannia's wars rehearse, In the smooth records of a faithful verse ; That, if such numbers can o'er time prevail, May tell posterity the wond'rous tale. When actions, unadorn'd, are faint and weak, Cities and Countries must be taught to speak ; Gods may descend in factions from the skies, And Rivers from their oozy beds arise ; Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays, And round the Hero cast a borrow'd blaze. Marlbro's exploits appear divinely bright, And proudly shine in their own native light ; Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast, And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most. 1 Polite, sane, polished, restrained, kept from absurdity by a latent sense of humor, and within the limits of their good sense conventionally admirable, lines like these are what made Addison's fortune. We have seen enough of them to understand both what manner of thing Whig politicians thought fit to patronize, and what manner of man Addison showed himself. What the politicians approved was a superficial pseudo-classic civil- ity. With cool head, with excellent heart, with dulness enough to be innocently canting, with humor enough never to be ridiculous, Addison, as revealed in this earlier work, was almost the ideal of such critics. V So much for the work which established Addison's personal position. In 1709, when the Tatler began to appear, he was already Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Meanwhile his published writings had given little more 1 Campaign, 11. 463-476. INTRODUCTION xxxi evidence of the traits which have made him permanent than appear in the accounts of Monaco and of San Marino * in his Remarks on Italy, or than such an occasional passage as the following, from the same book : , I remember when I was at Chateaudun in France, I met with a very curious person, a member of one of the German Universi- ties. He had stayed a day or two in the town longer than ordi- nary, to take the measures of several empty spaces that had been cut in the sides of a neighbouring mountain. Some of them were supported with pillars formed out of the rock, some were made in the fashion of galleries, and some not unlike amphitheatres. The gentleman had made to himself several ingenious hypotheses concerning the use of these subterraneous apartments, and from thence collected the vast magnificence and luxury of the ancient Chateaudunois. But upon communicating his thoughts upon this subject to one of the most learned of the place, he was not a little surprised to hear that these stupendous works of art were only so many quarries of free-stone, that had been wrought into different figures, according as the veins of it directed the workmen. 2 In passages like these one feels both the polish of Addison's style and the peculiar quality of his humor. In passages like those about St. Peter's 3 or Siena one feels the conventional civility of his culture. Throughout one feels implied the principles of a stoutly Protestant Whig gentleman of the early eighteenth century. To feel these traits, however, one must study them out from the midst of pretty dry material. Had Addison written no more than we have as yet considered, it is hardly probable that posterity would have turned to. him for a literary pleasure which the lapse of generations has not lessened. In Courthope's Life of Addison and in Perry's English Lit- erature in the Eighteenth Century may be found considerable iBohn, I, 361, 403 ft. 2Bohn, I, 432. » Bohn, 1,417, 418; 489. xxxii INTRODUCTION accounts of the origins of journalism in England. 1 For our purposes it is enough to remark that when Steele produced the first number of the Tatler, on April 12, 1709, no such thing as a modern newspaper existed. The new periodical, which appeared three times a week, was projected to com- bine, together with other duties, the offices now performed by journals so various as the Times, the Saturday Review, Truth, and the Queen. The Tatler, in short, represents periodical literature in almost the earliest stage of evolution. It was differentiated from other literature by the fact of its periodicity. Otherwise, at least for a while, it remained amorphous and heterogeneous. It had not even developed the idea of editorial impersonality. Whatever was written, the good sense of the time held, must be written by some- body. At the same time, Steele was not disposed to write in his own person ; the instinct which has ultimately made every editor impersonal was already awake. He accordingly assumed the name and character of Isaac Bickerstaff, a mock astrologer, who had lately been invented by Swift to torment an astrologic charlatan named Partridge. In his first Tatler, Mr. Bickerstaff promised to divide his papers into five parts, as follows : All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-House ; Poetry under that of Will's Coffee-House ; Learning under the title of Grecian ; Foreign and Domestic News you will have from Saint James' Coffee-House ; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment. " What else " ultimately swallowed all the rest. Before the Tatler came to an end, at the beginning of 1 7 1 1 , it had become 1 See also Andrews, History of British Journalism, 2 vols., London, 1857; Fox Bourne, English Newspapers, 2 vols., London, 1887; Grant, The Newspaper Press, 3 vols., London, 1 871-1872. Cf. too Gay's Pres- ent State of Wit (17 n) in Arber's English Garner, VI, 503 ff., and John Dunton's Life and Errors. INTRODUCTION xxxiii the sort of polite periodical essay which would now be repre- sented by articles in a magazine, and of which the lasting type is the Spectator. In discussing Addison's essays, which remain unsurpassed; we are therefore justified in regarding his contributions to the Tatler as essentially preliminary, and the Freeholder, with his other later works, as merely supplementary. For our purposes the Spectator tells the whole story. This periodical first appeared on March i , 1 7 1 1 ; it con- tinued daily until December 6, 17 12; and it was revived, three times a week, between June and December, 17 14. Addison, who had contributed to the Tatler since May, 1709, wrote decidedly less than half of the Spectator; Steele wrote almost, if not quite, as much ; and a number of other less cele- brated wits wrote a good deal. Throughout the Spectator, however, there runs a personal note as .strong as that which pervades a modern newspaper whose editor has vigorous indi- viduality. Tradition is probably right in referring this to the great personal influence which Addison had on his collabora 1 - tors. In permanent literature the names of Addison and of the Spectator seem really identical. To appreciate both the periodical and the man we must remind ourselves of the age which produced them. Broadly speaking, we may say that the men of letters who flourished under Queen Anne were born in the reign of King Charles II. The very name of that sovereign suggests the state of fashion- able morals which surrounded Addison's youth. Quite to understand the Restoration, however, — and understanding of the Restoration is essential to understanding of the Spectator, — we must glance back at the century which preceded it. Whatever else this bewildering century was, it was a period of fiercer passion than the English race had known before or has known since. England remained mediaeval so much longer than the continent of Europe that she felt at the same moment xxxiv INTRODUCTION the influences of the Renaissance and of the Reformation. The former, as everywhere, aroused not only susceptibility to the graces of culture and of art, but a slumbering power of pagan enjoyment whose lasting literary expression is to be found in the lyrics, and still more in the great dramas, which are commonly called Elizabethan. At the same time the solemn enthusiasm of the Reformation developed a passionate fervor of religious feeling which ultimately masked itself beneath the formal austerities of the Puritans. These devotees have been more misunderstood than any other figures in English history. Superficially grim, narrow, bigoted, and often extremely prac- tical in conduct, they have been reputed by tradition inhu- manly devoid of any traits which should make comprehensible the admitted intensity of their convictions. Only after inti- mate study of their lives and their records does one begin to perceive the intense idealism of their faith. It was because to them the only realities were the ineffable glories of the unseen world that they at once so palpably neglected the charms and the beauties of earthly life, and spoke in symbols which to those who do not sympathize seem canting and unim- aginative. Once force yourself into a mood which actually, intensely believes that this earthly life is only a fragment of eternity in which the unmerited mercy of an offended God may perhaps grant to some of us the free grace of salvation from the damning consequences of sin, ancestral and personal alike, and you will begin to understand how to the Puritans every instant of human existence was pregnant with a mean- ing such as the less secure faith of later times can hardly suspect. The pagan recklessness of the Renaissance clashed with the Hebraic fervor of the Puritan Reformation. In such a storm of passion as nowadays seems incredible, Cavaliers and Puritans met and fought. The king's head fell ; driven into exile or obscurity, the Royalists languished for twelve years INTRODUCTION xxxv under the grimly formalizing masters of the Commonwealth. Sincere fervor on both sides was burning itself out. In place of passionate idealism the Puritan temper was actually grow- ing into that decadent unloveliness which has often been held to embrace all Puritan history. In place of pagan reckless- ness, meanwhile, the Royalists, many of them idle among the fascinating vices of continental corruption, were developing shameless licentiousness. With the return of Charles II this decadent paganism came into a power which was checked by pothing more vital than the decadent formalism of' the later Puritans. When Addison was born the English race was exhausted by a century of passionate striving for the realities which lie unattainably behind the phenomena of life; good forces and evil alike were weakened until they showed them- selves only in the decadent forms of heartless phrases and shameless sensuality. In the years of Addison's youth and of his early manhood this state of things had persisted. With occasional amel- ioration, the personal morals of the Reformation remained the ideals of fashion. Whatever vigor the more serious feeling of the time may have declared meanwhile, it never took the form of passionate idealism, of sincere effort to perceive and to master the realities which lie beyond human ken. Super- ficially, up to the time of the Spectator itself, the exhausted traditions of the passionate past still maintained the incom- patibility of goodness and pleasure, of graces and virtue. The English race, which had been undergoing this spiritual experience, preserved meanwhile an instinct which has been constant throughout its history, and which remains generally characteristic of English-speaking Americans as well. Con- tinental nations have always laughed at English propriety — at the persistency, for example, with which decent English 'travellers are presumed to repeat the adjectives " shocking " and " improper." Such opinions, continental scoffers hold, xxxvi INTRODUCTION cannot be spontaneously sincere; wherefore the English are declared a nation of hypocrites. One can see why : to every- body, in reckless moods, shocking and improper things offer temptation ; and an instinctive recoil from them, as distin- guished from courageous rejection, often seems to imply pre- tence to more than human excellence of motive. Any normal Englishman, however, and any normal American of true Eng- lish stock, who will honestly look within himself, will discover somewhere in his moral nature a distinct propensity not com- mon in people of alien blood. As a race we sincerely like tq be respectable. Of course we all know that it is very pleasant to do a great many things which we ought not to do. With equal instinctiveness, however, we know that it is also pleasant to be and to be recognized as something like what we ought to be. At the same time, too, we are instinctively aware that the delights of true respectability do not involve anything ap- proaching such trouble as must come to whoever would con- ceal habits of devouring forbidden fruit. Quick-witted races perhaps enjoy being one thing and seeming another. The intellectual activity demanded by such a course, on the other hand, is painfully unattractive to the sluggish temperament of our native stock. Throughout history, accordingly, men of English blood have generally preferred to be respectable. What foreigners call our hypocrisy is really a spontaneous manifestation of our profound mental inertia. The precise function of the Spectator was honestly to pro- claim afresh this ideal to which the English race has always remained on the whole loyal. The Tatler had begun as a news- paper. In less than two years it had unwittingly changed into something like a censor of morals, which maintained a more normally English standard than that which had fashionably prevailed since the Gallicized times of Charles II. Now the rather dubious Isaac Bickerstaff, who so far as he had any personality was a charlatan, proved by no means a convenient INTRODUCTION xxxvii censor. Accordingly, he faded out of the Tatkr ; and, when the new periodical began, his place was taken by the nameless Spectator. Some such personage was really an artistic necessity. For a good fellow in early middle life, who walked about in a huge wig, and often went to bed the worse for wine, to lecture his contemporaries would have been unseemly. For Addison, besides, an assumed personality was needful as a matter of temperament. The man was always shy, self-conscious. In every line of the writing which he- did in his own person this trait is palpable. So long as in his own imagination he remained Mr. Joseph Addison, with his public career to look after as well as his private morals, he was really incapable of such abandonment of himself to his art as must underlie any lasting artistic achievement. As an imaginary Spectator, on the other hand, he was free to say and to do whatever he felt to be in accordance with his assumed character. No small part of the charm of Addison's Spectator, in short, may be traced to the happy accident of this underlying bit of private theatricals. The character of the Spectator, too, gave Addison and his fellow contributors to the famous paper an additional advan- tage. Their real object was to preach, to affect thought and conduct by bringing philosophy down to daily life. Their philosophy, to be sure, amounted to little more than urbane respectability.; but that made no difference. Preaching, to be effective, demands one of two visible sanctions — either the authority of a divine commission, which sometimes reveals itself in the shape of priestly orders, and sometimes in that of inspired fervor ; or else the authority which comes from pro- longed and wide experience. On March i, 17 n, when the first Spectator appeared, Addison was two months short of his thirty-ninth birthday. Steele was only a little older, and most of their coadjutors were younger still. To have preached in xxxviii INTRODUCTION their own persons, would evidently have been to assume an authority beyond their years. In no one point does the fine humor which always preserved Addison from absurdity appear more plainly than in the assumption by these men in early middle life of an age which should give their utterances weight. The age of the Spectator, as well as the sketch of his per- sonal career in the first paper, was a deliberate fiction. The broader traits which he displayed through the whole career of his journal were very probably genuine. Addison certainly wrote the passage in which the Spectator introduces him- self; with equal certainty he had no direct hand in more than half of the papers which followed. Very clearly, however, the character of the Spectator was generally maintained through- out the series with a consistency which has been less remarked than it deserves. One still hears much of the characters of Sir Roger de Coverley and of Will Honeycomb, but little con- cerning the personal character of the Sp ecta tor himself. As one reads his lucubrations, however, one grows insensibly to feel that he is as distinctly individualized as any personage ^Eng- lish fiction ; his individuality is generally unrecognized only because it is so contemplatively unobtrusive. As such it has much in common with Addison's own. Char- acteristic, too, of Addison as well as of the Spectator are the traits which define themselves for whoever reads paper after paper. The full effect of these papers may best be appreciated nowadays by a deliberate effort to revive the conditions under which they originally appeared. Keep your Spectator at hand. Turn to it once a day, and read, in the order of their appear- ance, one paper at a time. A fortnight of such daily inter- course with the Spectator as was the delight of London in the time of Queen Anne will teach you more about him than months of elaborate, detailed study. You will grow to know him as peo- ple knew John Leech thirty years ago, as more lately we INTRODUCTION xxxix ourselves knew George du Maurier. You may not be able precisely to define what sort of personage this friendly old Spectator is ; but you will know him much as you know real people. You will feel his constant good-breeding — a trait in which he has never been surpassed ; you will learn to appre- ciate his peculiar humor, which never quite makes you laugh, but always engages your sympathy, and always keeps him from becoming ridiculous ; you will feel his extremely English con- ventionality, his superficial philosophy, his avoidance of any- thing transcendental or passionate ; yet, for all his limits, you will by and by feel a dim regret that the gentlemen of to-day can never be quite what was incarnate in the gentlemen of the old school. You will find for yourselves, no doubt, other traits than these; for each human being must find in every other whom he comes to know something peculiar to himself. Insensibly you will make for yourself a new and a lasting friend. And this friend will be Joseph Addison. Through his eyes, meanwhile, you will have seen, with a vividness hardly before paralleled in English literature, what the actual surface of life was like in the days when he wrote. Earlier writers and later have seen much farther than he into the depths of human nature and of spiritual experience. None before him, and few since, have so admirably noted those things in human affairs which meet the eye, and which must give the data from which more profound philosophizing should start. Quietly approving simple virtues, quietly making fun of petty vices, generally gliding over the surface of deeper things, he will always put you in a temper that shall do you good. Now- adays, we presently see, such literature would surely take a more elaborate form. Between Addison's time and ours has grown, and flourished, and begun to decay that notable literary fact, the English novel. In those traits of the Spectator on which we have touched one may find the germs not only of the periodical literature which was to come but also of a great school of fiction. xl INTRODUCTION Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century 1 admi- rably sets forth the general traits of Addison's criticism. Inde- pendent in motive, personally sincere, it is in substance limited by the conventional traditions of his time. His literary criti- cism 2 was essentially Aristotelian : there were ideal standards with which whatever you should judge must be compared — to stand or fall accordingly. While Addison's own remarks are throughout of historic value, symbolizing with more than usual precision the conditions of life which produced them, Addison seems never to have dreamed that literature could be regarded as a phase of history, varying with the course of human affairs. To him literary merit was a positive, dogmatic thing. As much as any man, indeed, he reveals the historical limitations of his time. It was a time, as we have seen, when fervid pas- sion had burned itself out. In seeking for transcendental perception, men had long neglected the plain facts of life. Now at last, even in philosophy and in religion, they were not only content but delighted with the simple facts of superficial, unspiritual good sense. The style of Addison meanwhile was peculiarly agreeable. Dr. Johnson's criticism of it is masterly : His prose is the model of the middle style ; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling ; pure without scrupu- losity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace ; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour. 1 Chap. iv. See also Nathan Drake, Essays, II, 1 17-167 ; and A. S. Cook's preface to his edition of Addison's papers on Milton (Ginn & Company, Boston, 1892). 3 The most notable examples of this — the papers on Milton — have been thoroughly edited by' Professor Cook of Yale University. They are therefore not -included in this volume. • INTRODUCTION xli It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harsh- ness and severity of diction ; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation ; yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted, he performed ; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic ; he is never rapid, and he never stag- nates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity : his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison. 1 The better one knows Addison, the more exhaustive that celebrated criticism seems. In just two pages of the pocket volume in which it first appeared, it tells the whole truth about a style which has been traditionally held the standard model of English prose ; and it tells that truth, too, with the judicial firmness involved in a studied effort to be scrupulously just to a writer with whom the critic could feel small personal sympathy. Like Addison himself, however, Johnson was a man of the eighteenth century; and to that century, from beginning to end, all ideals of artistic excellence remained positive. If classic architecture, for example, were excellent, it followed beyond peradventure that Gothic was barbarous. If Addison's style was excellent, it followed that throughout all time to come excellent style must resemble Addison's. At this moment we happen to think otherwise. The essence of life in any language shows itself in the subtle, idiomatic changes which reveal themselves as generation succeeds gen- eration. Only the disappearance from among mankind of liv- ing thinkers in Latin rendered possible that final precision of Latin style so faithfully exemplified in the Latin verses of Addison. To-day, accordingly, the style of Addison, in spite l Johnson's Lives, ed. Cunningham, II, 177-178. = xlii INTRODUCTION of all its excellence, is a thing of the past ; for to-day we who speak and write English must perforce speak and write the language not of Queen Anne but of Queen Victoria. In 1852 Thackeray published Henry Esmond, a novel which one some- times inclines to believe the most beautiful in our language. In this Thackeray, than whom no English writer was ever more thoroughly a man of his time, deliberately endeavored to express himself in Addisonian manner. The result is full of charm ; yet in every page you must surely feel that this English is a work of elaborate imitation. Simple, easy, idiomatic, fluent, it remains artificial. Such style as this is not a style in which any man of Thackeray's day would have expressed himself concerning contemporary life. In reading Addison himself, on the other hand, one never has this feeling. Not the least charm of his style is that somehow it seems normal. For all their deliberate felicity, his simple, idiomatic words and phrases never seem laboriously studied. For all the elusive subtlety of their almost inimitable rhythm, his clauses, his sentences, his whole essays have the unmistakable grace of spontaneous ease. Really, of course, words and rhythm alike were studied with the faithful care of a literary artist trained for years in the exacting school of Latin versification. This studied care, however,' seems a part of the man ; were he not deliberately polite in every detail, he could not have been completely the literary model of his time. Were he not this, he could not have been truly himself. The true difference between Addison's time and ours, and so the true secret of the difference between Thackeray's English and his, lies in the change of artistic ideal on which we have more than once touched. In our time the ideal of style may perhaps be stated as those words and phrases which shall most exactly symbolize the immaterial reality of thought and emotion for which they stand. In the eighteenth century the ideal of style was rather those words and phrases which should most INTRODUCTION xliii nearly approach an abstract ideal of excellence. At either epoch the ideal of the other might have been striven for, but not with that fulness of instinctive faith which makes artistic effort normal. Such a style as Addison's was possible only at a moment when not only the writer but his public retained unshaken, spontaneous faith in the permanent excel- lence of classical models. VI We have now considered the early works which made Addi- son's personal fortune and the essays which have won him a lasting place in English literature. Of his other writings only one need detain us, and that rather for historical than for artistic reasons^ In Macaulay's essay on Addison is a full account of the circumstances which conspired to make the tragedy of Cato the most brilliant success of Addison's career. This play, begun during Addison's Italian travels, was neither completed nor produced until 1713. Dr. Johnson's criticism admirably defines the admiration it still commanded after the lapse of seventy years : Of a work so much read, it is difficult to say anything new. About things in which the public thinks long, it commonly attains to think right ; and of " Cato " it has been not unjustly deter- mined that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language than a repre- sentation of natural affections, or of any state probable or pos- sible in human life. Nothing here " excites or assuages emotion ; here is no magical power of raising phantastic terror or wild anxiety." The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care: we consider not what they are doing, or what they are suffering ; we wish only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being above our solicitude ; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom we leave to their care with heedless confidence. xliv INTRODUCTION To the rest neither gods nor men can have much attention ; for there is not one amongst them that strongly attracts either affec- tion or esteem. But they are made the vehicles of such senti- ments and such expression, that there is scarcely a scene in the play which the reader does not wish to impress upon his memory. 1 At the present moment, more than a century after Johnson wrote, it is hard to imagine any surviving reader who should share this wish. Historically, however, Cato retains a certain interest. In Addison's Remarks on Italy occurs the following passage : The opera that was most in vogue during my stay at Venice, was built on the following subject. Caesar and Scipio are rivals for Cato's daughter. Caesar's first words bid his soldiers fly, for the enemies are upon them. " Si leva Cesare, e dice a Soldati. A la fugga. A' lo scampo." The daughter gives the preference to Caesar, which is made the occasion of Cato's death. Before he kills himself, you see him withdrawn into his library, where, among his books, I observed the titles of Plutarch and Tasso. After a short soliloquy he strikes himself with the dagger that he holds in his hand, but being interrupted by one of his friends, he stabs him for his pains, and by the violence of the blow unluckily breaks the dagger on one of his ribs, so that he is forced to despatch himself by tearing up his first wound. 2 This opera is believed to have suggested to Addison the plan of making the story of Cato into a drama which should be a model of form. Four acts of it are said to have been virtually finished before his return to England. The fifth act was almost certainly written shortly before its per- formance — a moment when political contingencies rendered of apt value the patriotic and liberty-loving sentiments which pervade the tragedy. This accident of the moment certainly" helped greatly toward the extraordinary success of Cato on 1 Works, ed. Cunningham, II, 161-162. ' Bohn, I, 392. INTRODUCTION xlv the stage. To a great degree, however, this success was due to the very traits in the play which now render it obsolete. Addison, as we have seen, found a hint for his plot in an ephemeral opera of obvious absurdity. The subject thus sug- gested he proceeded to phrase and to compose according to the strictest rules of that pseudo-classic art which, in common with the best scholarship of his time, he believed permanently excellent. There is perhaps no play in English which more rigidly observes the unities and the other rules of literary decorum which, to our thinking, make the classical tragedies of France such drearily artificial things. Voltaire thought Cato an admirable work of dramatic art. So did the century whose taste Voltaire may stand for. To us Cato groups itself with the earlier works on which Addison's political fortunes were based. His unquestioning faith in the traditional standards of classical scholarship made this tragedy, where with all the self-consciousness of his own personality he felt bound to do his best, a tissue of tedious and lifeless amenities. Only when masquerading as the imagi- nary scribbler of essays could Addison ever so abandon him- self to his subject as to be a writer of lasting human interest. VII -Of lasting human interest, however, his essays must always remain. So pleasant have they proved to generation after gen- eration of readers that we are apt now to forget the real work which they did when they were new. The precise function of the Spectator, as we have seen, was to proclaim afresh, after the reckless license of the Restoration, that simple ideal of respectability to which the English race has generally remained loyal. So fully did it accomplish its task that to this day we retain something like a personal memory of its traditions. The eighteenth century, one sometimes feels, survived longer in America than in Europe. At all events a good many xlvi INTRODUCTION people in America, not yet past middle life, can vividly remember among the older figures who surrounded their youth many an amiable old friend whose thoughts and phrases seemed more in accordance with the England which reveals itself in the literature of Queen Anne and of the early Georges than with that which expresses itself in the literature of Vic- toria. The traditions of the Spectator are hardly yet extinct in the quieter regions of New England. What they were in their own day a familiar tragic story of the period reminds us. Among the younger contributors to the Spectator was one Eustace Budgell, a kinsman of Addi- son's, and to some degree a favorite of his. After Addison's death Budgell went wrong. A wretched career of folly and crime ended in suicide under the arches of London Bridge. The unhappy man, however, retained to the last his reverence for his great kinsman ; and after his death there were found in his handwriting these lines, which he had left to justify his self-destruction : What Cato did, and Addison approved, Cannot be wrong. What Addison approved was the test of right to the genera- tiorPfHatToved Tiim ; and to this day traditional criticism can pay no higheF compliment to a prose style than to call it Addisonian. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. First Editions. A. First editions of Addison's undoubted works published during his lifetime. B. First editions of Addison's undoubted works published after his death. C. Doubtful works. II. Collective Editions. III. Biography and Criticism. IV. Further Illustrations of the Period. The abbreviations in parenthesis after each of the rarer titles indicate some of the libraries where that edition is to be found ; the star indi- cates the library whose copy has been used in making this bibliography. Bodl. = Bodleian Library ; B. M. = British Museum ; B. P. L. = Boston Public Library ; H. = Harvard College Library ; T. C. D. = Trinity College Library, Dublin. I. First Editions A. Undoubted Works, idgo-iyrg 1690. Academiae Oxoniensis | Gratulatio | Pro Exoptato Serenis- simi | Regis Guilielmi | Ex | Hibernia Reditu. | \cuf\ | Oxoniae, | E Theatro Sheldoniano Anno Dom. 1690. Addison's poem "Cum Domini," etc. (Bohn Edition, VI, 547), begins at the top of p. [y2 recto] and continues to the middle of the next page [y2 verso]. The poem is signed " Joh. Addison, e Col. Mag." (Bodl.; B. M.*) 1693. Theatri | Oxoniensis | Encaenia, | Sive,| Comitia Philologica. | Julii 7, Anno 1693. celebrata. | [cut] | Oxonii, | E Theatro Sheldoniano, An. Dom. MDCXCIII. This volume contains an oration, " Nova Philosophia Veteri praeferenda est," which has usually been placed among Addison's doubtful works. That it is unquestionably Addison's appears as soon as one examines the " Ordo commis- sionurn Philologicarum in Enccsniis pradictis" which follows the title-page: xlvii xlviii BIBLIOGRAPHY " I. Johan. Pelling Incept, in Art. ex JEde Christi. Enctenia aperuii. Oratione soluta. . . . xiv. Jos. Addison, Rich. Smallbrook, Edv. Taylor, A.BB. e Coll. Magd. Lemma habuerunt. Vitus cV Nova [sic] Philosophia. Oratione soluta." The book is not paged. On L 2 back — N 2 back are the three orations in the following order : " Nova Philosophia Veteri praeferenda est." " Vetus Philosophia Novae prasferenda est." " Qu33ritur utrum Vetus Philosophia, an Nova sit praeferenda." The first, ■which is Addison's, begins on the back of the twenty-fourth sheet. (Bodl.*) 1693. Examen Poeticum : | Being | The Third Part | Of | Miscellany Poems. I Containing Variety of | New Translations | Of The | Ancient Poets. I Together with many | Original Copies, | By The | Most Emi- nent Hands. | Haec potior soboles : hinc Coeli tempore certo, | Dulcia mella premes. — Virgil. Geor. 4. | In medium quaesta reponunt. Ibid. | London : | Printed by R. E for Jacob Tonson, at the Judges | Head in Chancery-Lane, near Fleetstreet. | MDCXCIII. Contains the verses " To Mr. Dryden. By Mr. Jo. Addison," which occupy pp. 247-249, and at the end are dated " Mag. Coll. Oxon, June 2, 1693." (Bodl.j H.*; T. C. D.) 1694. The | Annual Miscellany: | For | The Year 1694. | Being | The Fourth Part | Of | Miscellany Poems. | Containing Great Variety | Of | New Translations | And | Original Copies, | By The | Most Eminent Hands. I London : | Printed by R. E for Jacob Tonson, at the Judges | Head near the Inner Temple-Gate, in Fleetstreet. | MDCXCIV. This includes the following poems by Addison : " 2. Fourth Book of Georgici (except the story of Aristeus)." " n. Song for St. Cecilia's Day at Oxford." " 12. Story of Salmacis, from the fourth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses." " 47. An Account of the Greatest English Poets. To Mr. H. S. Apr. 3d. 1694." (B. M.; H.»j T. C. D.) 1695. A I Poem | To His | Majesty, | Presented to the | Lord Keeper. [ By Mr. Addison, of Mag. Coll. Oxon. | London. | Printed for Jacob Tonson, at the Judge's-Head | near the Inner-Temple-Gate in Fleet- street, I MDCXCV. (B. p. L.*) 1697. The | Works | Of | Virgil: | Containing His Pastorals, | Georgics, | And | jEneis. | Translated into English Verse ; By | Mr. Dryden. | Adorn'd with a Hundred Sculptures. | Sequiturque Patrem non passibus iEquis. Virg. Mn. 2. | London, | Printed for Jacob Ton- son, at the Judges-Head in Fleetstreet, | near the Inner-Temple-Gate, MDCXCVII. To this Addison contributed "An Essay on the Georgics," (pp. 6) between pp. 48 and 49. (Bodl.j B. M. ; H.*j T. C. D.) BIBLIOGRAPHY xlix 1698. Examen | Poeticum Duplex : | Sive | Musarum Anglicanarum | Delectus Alter ; | Cui subjicitur | Epigrammatum | seu | Poematum Minorum | Specimen Novum. | Londini : | Impensis Ric. Wellington, ad insigne chelyos in | Coemeterio Divi Pauli. MDCXCVTII. Two parts, octavo; pp. 219 + 56. Part i contains the following poems by Addison : "8. Sphaeristerium. Jo. Addison. Col. Magd. Oxon." (p. 34). " 9. Resurrectio, delineata ad altare Col. Magd. Jo. Addison " (p. 38). " 10. Machines Gesticulantes, Anglice. A puppet-show. Jo. Addison " (P- 44)- "11. Insignissimo viro Thomae Burnet. Jo. Addison" (p. 49). " 15. Barometri Descriptio. Jo Addison" (p. 75). " 29. Praelium inter Pygmaeos & grues commissium [sic], Jo. Addi- son" (p. 158). Part ii, the last fifty-six pages of the book (numbered separately 1-56), is entitled " Epigrammatum | seu | Poematum Minorum | Speci- men Novum " ; it contains one hundred and two epigrams, of which the authors are not indicated. (B. M.*) [1692-]1699. Musarum | Anglicanarum | Analecta: | Sive, | Poemata quaedam melioris notae, seu | hactenus Inedita, seu sparsim Edita, | In duo Volumina congesta. | Vol. II. | [cut of Sheldonian Theatre] \ Oxon. I E Theatro Sheldoniano, Impensis Joh. Crosley, | An. Dom. M.DC.XCIX. This volume contains the following poems by Addison ; the numbers which precede them give their place in the table of contents, although they are not actually so numbered. [i.J "Pax, Gulielmi Auspiciis, Europae reddita, 1697. J. Addison, A.M. Coll. Magd. Soc." (p. 3). [9.] " Barometri Descriptio, Jo. Addison, A.B. e Coll. Magd." (p. 44). [12.] " ITTTMAIO-rEPANOMAXIA, sive Praelium inter Pygmaeos & Grues commissum, Jo. Addison e Coll. Magd." (p. 56). [30.] " Resurrectio Delineata ad Altare Coll. Magd. Oxon. Jo. Addi- son, e Coll. Magd." (p. 157). [35.] " Sphaeristerium, Jo. Addison, e Coll. Magd." (p. 187). [37.] " Ad DD. Hannes Insignissimum Medicum & Poetam, Jo. Addi- son, e Coll. Magd." (p. 199). [45.] " Machinae Gesticulantes, Anglice, A Puppet-show. Jo. Addi- son, e Coll. Magd." (p. 243). [S3-] " Ad Insignissimum Virum D. Tho. Burnettum, Sacrae Theorise Telluris Autorem, Jo. Addison, A.B. e Coll. Magd." (p. 284). 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY The Dedication of this second volume (pp. 1-2) is " Honoratissimo Viro Carolo Mountague Armigero," etc. It is signed " Humanitatis Tuae Cultor Devotissimus Josephus Addison." The first volume, ..." Oxon. E. Theatro Sheldoniano, Impensis | Joh. Crosley & Sam, Smith, | Bibliopol. Lond. | M.DC.XCIL," contains thirty-two poems, of which none are anonymous and none said to be by Addison. (Vol. I, B. M.*j Vol. II, B. M. ; H.*) [1703?] The first edition of Addison's Letter from Italy, which seems to have been published in 1703, has thus far escaped our search. That there was an edition of 1703 seems clear from the fact that the poem as printed in Tonson's Miscellany for 1704 (Part V, the first edi- tion) has a separate title-page which says that it was " Printed in the year 1703." There is, however, no such edition in the catalogues of any of the libraries mentioned at the beginning of this bibliography. 1704. Poetical Miscellanies : | The | Fifth Part. | Containing a | Collection | Of | Original Poems, | With Several | New Translations. | By the most Eminent Hands. | London, | Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn | Gate, next Grays-Inn Lane. 1704. | Where you may have the Four former Parts : Pub- | lish'd by Mr. Dryden. To this Addison contributed : " The Story of Phaeton, beginning the Second Book of Ovid's Meta- morphoses. Translated by Mr. Joseph Addison " (pp. 45-66). " Notes on the foregoing Story " (pp. 67-75). " Europa's Rape : Translated from Ovid. By Mr. Joseph Addison " (pp. 87-91). " Notes on the foregoing Story " (p. 92). " Milton's Stile imitated, in a Translation of a Story out of the Third Aeneid. By Mr. Joseph Addison" (pp. 109-117). " The Third Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. By Mr. Joseph Addi- son" (pp. 509-583). "Notes on the First Fable" [Fab. II, Fab. Ill, &c] (pp. 584-592). (B. M. ; H.* ; T. C. D.) 1705. The I Campaign, | A | Poem, | To His Grace the | Duke of Marlborough. | By Mr. Addison. | — Rheni pacator & Istri. | Omnis in hoc Uno variis discordia cessit | Ordinibus ; lsetatur Eques, plauditque Senator, | Votaque Patricio certant Plebeia favori. | Claud, de Laud. Stilic. I London, | Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn Gate next I Grays-Inn Lane. 1705. (Bodl.; B. P. L.*j H.*; B. M.) BIBLIOGRAPHY li 1705. The | Tender Husband ; | Or, The | Accomplish'd Fools. | A | Comedy. | As it is Acted at the | Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. | By Her Majesty's Servants. | Written by Mr. Steele. | Oportet ut is qui Audiat Cogitet plura quam | Videat. | Tull. de Oratore. | London, | Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn Gate next | Grays-Inn Lane. 1705. Addison wrote the Prologue. (B. M.; H.*) 1705. Remarks | On Several | Parts | Of | Italy, &c. | In the Years 1701, 1702, 1703. I Verum ergo id est, si quis in coelum ascendisset, | naturamque mundi & pulchritudinem si- | derum perspexisset, insuavem illam admi- | rationem ei fore, quae jucundissima fuisset, | si aliquem cui narraret habuisset. | Cicer. de Amic. | London, | Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays- | Inn Gate next Grays-Inn Lane. 1705. (B. M. ; H* j T. C. D.) 1706. The | British Enchanters: | Or, | No Magick like Love. | A I Tragedy. | As it is Acted at the | Queen's Theatre in the | Hay- Market. I By Her Majesty's Sworn Servants. | London, | Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn Gate next ] Grays-Inn Lane. 1706. By George Granville (or Grenville), Lord Lansdowne. Addison wrote, but did not sign, the Epilogue. (B. P. L. ; B. M. ; H.*) 1707. Rosamond. | An | Opera. | Humbly Inscrib'd to Her | Grace the Dutchess | Of | Marlborough. | Hie quos durus Amor crudeli tabe peredit | Secreti celant Calles, & Myrtea circiim | Sylva tegit. Virg. JEn. 6. j London : | Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Grays-Inn Gate next Grays- | Inn Lane. 1707. (Bodl.*; H.*) 1708. The | Present State | Of The | War, | And The | Necessity | Of An I Augmentation, | Consider'd. | London : Printed, and Sold by J. Morphew near | Stationers Hall. 1708. (Bodl.; B. M.»; T. C. D.) [1709.] Phaedra | And | Hippolitus. | A | Tragedy. | As it is Acted at the I Queen's Theatre | In The | Hay-Market, | By Her Majesty's Sworn Servants. | By Mr. Edmund Smith. | London, | Printed for Bernard Lintott at the Cross-Keys be- | tween the two Temple-Gates in Eleetstreet. [n. d.] Addison wrote, but did not sign, the Prologue. (Bodl. ; B. P. L* ; B. M. ; H.*) lii BIBLIOGRAPHY 1709-1710. Numb. I. The Tatler. By Isaac Bickerstaff Esq ; Quicquid agunt Homines nostri Farrago Libelli. Tuesday, April 12, 1709. . . . [text of paper] . . . London : Printed for the Author, 1709. Nos. 1-40 keep the same motto ; later numbers have various mottoes ; the first number is dated as above ; the second, third, and fourth, and each succeed- ing series of three, are dated "From Tuesday — to Thursday — ," " Thursday — to Saturday — ," and "Saturday — to Tuesday — "; with No. 5 the colophon changes to " Sold by John Morphew near Stationers-Hall ; where Advertisements are taken in." (B. M. ; H.*) 1710-1711. The I Lucubrations | Of | Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; | Vol. I. j 'Ob xP"h Travv^xiov vdeiv fiah-ripbtpov dvSpa. Homer. | London, | Printed: And to be deliver'd to Subscribers, by | Charles Lillie, Per- fumer, at the Corner of Beau- | ford-Buildings in the Strand ; and John Morphew | near Stationers-Hall. MDCCX. First collected edition. Four volumes : I and II, 1710 ; III and IV, 1711. (B. M.; H.*) 1711-1712. Numb. I. The Spectator Non fumum ex fulgare, sed ex fumo dare lucem Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat. Hor. To be Continued every Day. "Thursday, March 1, 171 1. . . . [text] . . . London : Printed for Sam. Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain ; and Sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane. With changes of number, motto, and date, this is the form of the daily issue except that (a) all numbers after the first omit the notice " To be Continued every Day"; (&) the numbering is irregular, — No. 155 is not used (Aug. 27, 1711 is No. 154 and Aug. 28 is 156), No. 164 is called No. 162, No. 166 is called No. 165, No. 286 is called No. 186, No. 388 is called 390, No. 390 is called No. 392 ; (c) the colophon changes, — Nos. 3-15 add " where Advertisements are taken in " ; Nos. 16-498 add " as also by Charles Lillie, Perfumer, at the Corner of Beauford-Buildings in the Strand"; with No. 499 the colophon is changed to " London : Printed for S. Buckley and J. Tonson : and Sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick Lane." (B. M. ; H.*; T. C. D.) 1712. The I Medleys | For the Year 1711. | To which are pre- fix'd, I The Five Whig-Examiners. | London, | Printed by John Darby, and sold | by Egbert Sanger at the | Posthouse in Fleetstreet, near Tem- I pie-Bar. M.DCC.XII. (H .») BIBLIOGRAPHY liii 1712-1713. The | Spectator. | Vol. I. | London: | Printed for S. Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little- | Britain ; and J. Tonson, at Shake- spear's-Head | over-against Catherine-street in the Strand. 1712. Seven volumes, octavo ; an eighth was added in 1715. The dates of the sepa- rate volumes in this first collected edition of the Spectator have been much con- fused. It is certainly wrong to say (as Mr. Aitken does: Steele, II, 400) that vols. III-VII were published in 1713 ; it is equally incorrect to say (as Mr. G. Gregory Smith does : Spectator, 1897-1898, vol. I, p. ix) that vols. Ill and IV appeared in 1712. The present editors have been able to gain access to only four sets of this edition; all of these, however, agree in dating vol. Ill, 1713 and vol. IV, 1712. Inserted in vol. Ill is a list of subscribers to the whole work. It is possible that, for the sake of receiving that list, vol. Ill was held over until it was too late to date it 1712 ; there is also to be considered the frequent practice of dating books ahead. But why vol. Ill should have been dated ahead or why it should have been held over to receive the list of subscribers is difficult to imagine, for the intention was certainly to print vols. I-II and vols. III-IV in pairs: see the advertisements of Nos. 227, 488, and 547. Note also that No. 555 (6 Dec. 1 712) says, not as an advertisement, but in the body of the paper, that four volumes " are already published," and compare (Bohn VI, 630) the publisher's contract, dated November 10, 1712, which begins "Whereas there is already printed four volumes of Spectators." The correct dates, then, so far as one may generalize from four sets, are : vols. I and II, 1712; vol. Ill, 1713; vol. IV, 1712 ; vols. V-VII, 1713; (vol. VIII, 1715). (B. M* ; H.* ; T. C. D.*) » 1713. Cato. I A I Tragedy. | As it is Acted at the | Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, | By | Her Majesty's Servants. | By Mr. Addison. | Ecce Spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat, intentus operi suo, | Deusl Ecce par Deo dignum, vir fortis cum mala fortuna | compositus ! Non video, inquam, quid habeat in terris Jupi- | ter pulchrius, si convertere animum velit, quim ut spectet | Catonem, jam partibus non semel fractis, nihilominus inter ru- | inas publicas erectum. Sen. de Divin. Prov. I London : | Printed for J. Tonson, at Shakespear's Head over- | against Catherine-Street in the Strand. MDCCXIII. (B. M.; H.*; T. C. D.) 1713. The Late | Tryal | And | Conviction | Of | Count Tariff. | London : | Printed for A. Baldwin, near | the Oxford-Arms in Warwick- Lane. I MDCCXIII. 1 Price Threepence. (B. M.*) 1 The fourth set examined was that owned by Miss A. I. Appleton, of Winchester, Massachusetts, to whose kindness in copying the title-pages the editors are much indebted. liv BIBLIOGRAPHY 1713 _ Numb. I. The Guardian. Ille quern requiris. Mart. To be Continued Every Day. Thursday, March 12, 1713. (Price Two Pence) (B. M.*) 1714. The I Guardian. | Vol. I. | \cui\ | London : | Printed for J. Tonson, at Shakespear's- | Head over-against Catherine-street in | the Strand. MDCCXIV. Two volumes. The second volume is the same as the first except that it has " Vol. II," and a different cut. (B. M.* ; T. C. D.) 1715. The I Lover. [ To which is added, The | Reader; | By the same Author. I Phyllida amo ante alias: nam me descedere flevit. | Virg. | London : | Printed for J. Tonson in the Strand, J. Brown | without Temple-Bar, and O. Lloyd near the | Church in the Temple. MDCC'XV. Although the paging is continuous, The Reader has the following separate title-page: The\ Reader: \ London: \ Printed for J. Tonson. MDCCXIV. This is the 12 edition; there were also copies in 8° (v. Br. Mus. catalogue). According to Mr. Aitken {Steele, II, 388), both editions were published December 18, 1714. Steele edited both Lover and Reader ; Addison is thought to have written Lover 10 and 39 and Reader 3 and 4. (H.*) 1715. The I Spectator. [ Vol. VIII. and Last. | [cut] | London : | Printed for Jacob Tonson, at Shakespear's-Head | over-against Cath- erine Street in the Strand. | MDCCXV. (H.*; T. C. D.) 1716. The [ Free-Holder, | Or | Political Essays. | [cut] | Lon- don. I Printed for D. Midwinter at the three | Crowns in St. Paul's Churchyard; and | J. Tonson at Shakespear's Head in the | Strand. 1716. (B. M.; H.*; T. C.D.) 1716. The I Drummer; | Or, The | Haunted House. | A | Com- edy. I As it is Acted at the | Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, | By | His Majesty's Servants. | — Falsis terroribus implet | Ut magus — Hor. I London: | Printed for Jacob Tonson at Shakespear's-Head, over- against I Katharine-Street in the Strand. MDCCXVI. (B. M.*; H.*; T. C. D.) The British Museum copy is of interest because the title-page has the words " by I Joseph Addison esq " written just above the word " London " and below the cross ruling which separates the motto from the imprint. The handwriting looks like that of. Addison himself; indeed one of the copyists in the British Museum writes : " This is in Addison's own handwriting." The probability of BIBLIOGRAPHY lv that, however, seems very small. First of all, it is unlikely that any author should thus acknowledge a work which, as all the other evidence goes to show, was intended to be anonymous. Secondly, the inscription, whether considered as an autograph or as autograph copy for a title-page, is open to objections : as an autograph, it is discredited by the unnatural " esq " and by the fact that in almost every case Addison abbreviated his first name to J. If the signature be consid- ered as a part of the title-page, — in which case the full first name and the " esq " would be natural, — it is, as Professor Kittredge has pointed out to the editors, strangely placed : it ought naturally to be above the cross ruling, if not above the motto, where the name of the author is placed in every title-page mentioned in this bibliography. Furthermore, had Addison thus publicly acknowledged The Drummer some time before June 17, 1719, it would seem that the fact, in the small literary world of that day, should speedily have become known. The result would be that The Drummer would be included in collective editions of Addison's works, and that if separate editions of the play were printed, Addison's name would appear upon the title-pages. But after two years, in 1721, Tickell was in appar- ent ignorance of any such evidence as an autograph would afford, for he does not include The Drummer in his collective edition of Addison's works. Neither is it included in the second collective edition (1730) or the third (1741). Again, Steele did not mention, and so presumably did not know of, this autograph, which would have been essential to his case, when in 1722 he prefaced the second edition of The Drummer with an arraignment of Tickell for not including the play in his edition of the year before. Giles Jacob did not know it, or at least makes no use of it, in 1723, when (in his Poetical Register, vol. I, pp. 3 and 309) he omits The Drummer from his list of the dramatic works of Addison, but shows that he knew of it by including it in his list of anonymous plays. 1716. To Her Royal Highness the | Princess of Wales, | With the Tragedy of Cato. Nov. 17 14. [ To | Sir Godfrey Kneller, | On His | Picture of the King. | London: | Printed for J. Tonson, at Shake- spear's-Head over- | against Catherine-street in the Strand. 17 16. (Bodl.*; B. M.) 1717. Ovid's I Metamorphoses | In | Fifteen Books. | Translated by the most Eminent Hands. | Adorn'd with Sculptures. | London : | Printed for Jacob Tonson at Shakespear's-Head | bver-against Kath- arine-Street in the Strand. | MDCCXVII. Addison did the second and third books. (B. M.*) 1719. The I Old Whig. | Numb. I. | On The | State of the Peer- age. I With I Remarks upon the Plebeian. | — quod optanti Divum promittere nemo | Auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultr6. | Virg. | London : | Printed : And Sold by J. Roberts in Warwick-Lane ; | and A.Dodd at the Peacock without Temple-Bar. | MDCCXIX. [Price6d.] (B. M.*) lvi BIBLIOGRAPHY B. Undoubted Works, 1721-1864 1721. Dialogues upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals. (In Tickell's edition of Addison's works, 1721, I, 435 ff.) 1721. Of the Christian Religion, (/bid., IV, 55 ff.) 1864. Some Portions of Essays Contributed to the Spectator By Mr. Joseph Addison Now first Printed from His MS. Note Book. I. Of Imagination. II. Of Jealousie. III. Of Fame. Done at Glasgow M.DCCC.LXIV. C. Doubtful Works, i6gz-i73g 1692. The Dissertatio de Insignioribus Romanorum Poetis (Auctore Jos. Addison) the editors have been unable to see. The above is the title given in Bohn's sixth volume, p. 587. The Dissertation is men- tioned (pp. 285, 628) in the Bibliotheca Parriana. Dr. Parr owned the work and considered it important as well as genuine. According to him the first edition was in 12°, London, 1692. Other editions men- tioned are of 1698, 1718, 1725, and 1750. [1699,] 1720. The poem which at p. 147 of Musarum Anglicanarum Analecta, Vol. II, 1699, is printed as Cursus Glacialis, Anglice, Seating. Phil. Frowde, Coll. Magd. Superioris Ordinis Commens. was in 1720 reprinted as Seating: \ A \ Poem. \ By Mr. Addison. | [cut] | Lon- don : I Printed for E. Cur 11 in Fleetstreet. \ M.DCC.XX. The preface, signed by one T. N., is as follows : " This Poem, though under the Name of another Gentleman, (in the Musae Anglicanae) was certainly written by the late Excellent Mr. Addison. There needs no Proof to a learned Reader that this is fact, since the Sameness of Stile and Expression is a convincing Argument, that it could be wrote by no body but by that Author." The poem is included in the collected volume of Addison's Latin poems, with translations, London, 1724; in Addison's Miscellaneous Works, London: Cogan, 1750 ; and in Bohn's edition (VI, 585 ft.). Although the matter has never been thoroughly investigated, there seems no good reason to believe that the verses were not by Frowde. (Bodl.; B. M.; H.*) 1712. The I Distrest Mother. | A | Tragedy. | As it is Acted at the | Theatre-Royal | in Drury-Lane. | By Her Majesty's Servants. | Writ- ten by Mr. Philips. | London : | Printed for S. Buckley at the Dolphin in Little-Britain ; and | J. Tonson, at Shakespear's-Head over-against Catherine-street | in the Strand. MDCCXII. The Epilogue, which in this edition has the title " Epilogue | written by Mr. Budgell of the Inner-Temple," has been attributed to Addison. For the evidence, BIBLIOGRAPHY lvii which seems very slender, see Bohn's edition, VI, 679 : " It was known, ... in Tonson's family, and told to Mr. Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of this epilogue ; and that when it was actually printed with his name he came early in the morning before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to Mr. E. Budgell, that it might add weight to the solicitation which Addison was then making for a place for Mr. Budgell." . . . (Bodl.jB. M.;H.*;T. CD.) 1716. In AbelBoyer's The Political State of Great Britain, April, 1716, there appeared for the first time * pamphlet entitled Arguments about the Alteration of Triennial Elections of Parliament. In a Letter to a Friend in the Country. In his prefatory note Boyer says (p. 484) that this letter was " generally fathered on the ingenious and judicious Joseph Addison, Esq." It is included in Addison's Miscellaneous Works, London : Cogan, 1750, and in Bohn's edition (Vol. VI, pp. 614 ff.). There is a good article on it by James Crossley in Notes and Queries, V, 577. (B. P. L.*; B. M.) 1739. A I Discourse | On | Ancient and Modern Learning. | By the late Right Honourable | Joseph Addison, Esq ; [ Now first published from an Original Manu- | script of Mr. Addison's, Prepared and Cor- | rected by himself. | London : | Printed for T. Osborne, in Gray's Inn. | M.DCC.XXXIX. I [Price One Shilling.] This reached a sixth edition in 1739. (B. M.*) II. Collective Editions 1721: Tickell. The Works Of The Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq ; In Four Volumes, London : . . . Jacob Tonson . . MDCCXXI. This edition is valuable because it contains Tickell's preface, and because it prints for the first time the Dialogues upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals (I, 435 ff.) and Of the Christian Religion (IV, 559 ff.). In 1730 and again in 1741 this edition was reprinted with few changes. 1761: Baskerville. The Works Of The Late Right Honorable Joseph Addison, Esq ; With a Complete Index. Birmingham : Printed by John Baskerville, for J. and R. Tonson, . . . , London. MDCCLXI. Has plates and is beautifully printed. Contains The Drummer, which Tickell had not included. On this, of course, see Steele's preface to The Drummer, second edition, 1722. lviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 1811 : Hurd. The Works Of The Right Honourable Joseph Addi- son, A New Edition, With Notes. By Richard Hurd, D.D. Lord Bishop of' Worcester, London: Cadell and Davies, 1811. Six volumes. The notes are unimportant. 1856: Greene. The Works of Joseph Addison, including the whole contents of Bishop Hurd's edition, with letters and other pieces not found in any previous collection ; and Macaulay's essay on his life and works, edited with critical and explanatory notes, by George Washing- ton Greene, New York : G. P. Putnam & Co., 1856. Six volumes. 1856: Bohn. The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addi- son. With notes by Richard Hurd . . . With large additions chiefly unpublished. Collected and edited by Henry G. Bohn, London: Bohn, 1856. Six volumes; in Bohn's "Standard Library." Frequently reprinted. On the whole this edition, bad as it is, gives us the best text of Addison. Annotated editions of importance are : of the Tatter, Nichols's in 6 vols., London, 1786, with notes by Bishop Percy and Dr. Calderj of the Spectator, Nichols's (8 vols., London, 1789), Professor Morley's (1 vol., London: Routledge, 1868, reprinted in 3 vols., London: Rout- ledge, 1883), and Mr. G. Gregory Smith's (8 vols., London : Dent ; and New York : Scribner, 1 897-1 898) ; of the Guardian, Nichols's in 2 vols., London, 1789. III. Biography and Criticism Addisoniana. In Two Volumes. Printed for [Sir] Richd Phillips, [London], 1803. Aikin, Lucy : The Life of Joseph Addison, 2 vols., London : Long- mans, 1843. Aitken, George A. . The Life of Richard Steele, 2 vols., London : Isbister, 1889. Very valuable, especially Bk. iv, Ch. i (on The Tatter); Bk. v, Ch. i {The Spectator) ; Bk. v, Ch. iv (The Guardian). Beljame, Alexandre: Le public et les hommes de lettres en Angle- terre au dix-huitieme Siecle . . . Paris: Hachette, 1881. Pages 225-338 concern Addison. , Courthope, W. J.. Addison, London: Macmillan, 1884. In the series of " English Men of Letters " edited by Mr. John Morley. BIBLIOGRAPHY lix Drake, Nathan : Essays, Biographical, Critical, and Historical, Illus- trative of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, 3 vols., 'London : John Sharpe, 1805. Johnson, Samuel: Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Lon- don: John Murray, 1854. In this edition — Cunningham's — the life of Addison occupies pp. 119-180 of the second volume. Kippis, Andrew : " Addison," in Biographic/. Britannica. [2nd ed. Ixmdon, 1778, I, 45-63.] Valuable ; contains many references and has a long note by Blackstone on Addison's quarrel with Pope. Macaulay, T. B. : The Life and Writings of Addison. {Edinburgh Review, July 1843, vol. LXXVIII, pp. 193-260; Works, ed. Lady Trevelyan, London : Longmans, 1875, VII, 52-122.) A review of Miss Aikin's life of Addison. Perry, Thomas S. : English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, New York: Harpers, 1883. Pages 130-182 particularly concern Addison. Spence, Joseph : Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men, London: Carpenter, 1820. Steele, Richard : Dedicatory Epistle to William Congreve prefixed to The Drummer, 2nd ed., 1722. Accessible in Arber's English Garner, VI, 523 if. Stephen, Sir Leslie : " Addison," in Dictionary of National Biog- raphy, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885. Vol. I, pp. 122-131. Admirable. Thackeray, W. M. : The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Cen- tury. (Chap, ii : Congreve and Addison.) Tickell, Thomas : The preface (Vol. I, pp. v-xvii) to the 1721 edition of Addison's works. Accessible in Arber's English Garner, VI, 513 ff. IV. Further Illustrations of the Period Ashton, John: Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, 2 vols., London : Chatto and Windus, 1882. Beers, H. A. : History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, New York: Holt, 1899. lx BIBLIOGRAPHY Fox Bourne, H. R. .- English Newspapers, etc., 2 vols., London : Chatto and Windus, 1887. [Boyer, Abel] : The History of King William the Third. In three Parts. Second edition, London, 1 703. [Boyer, Abel] : The History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Digested into Annals, n vols., London, 1 703-1 711. [Boyer, Abel] : The Annals of King George, etc., 6 vols., London, 1716-1721. [Boyer, Abel] : The Political State of Great Britain, 60 vols., Lon- don, 1711-1740. Burton, J. H. : A History of the Reign of Queen Anne, 3 vols.', Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1880. Dennis, John : The Age of Pope, London : Bell, 1894. Dobson, Austin : Eighteenth Century Vignettes [three series], London: Chatto and Windus, 1892, 1894, 1896. Garnett, Richard : The Age of Dryden, London : Bell, 1895. [Genest, John] : Some Account of the English Stage from the Res- toration in 1660 to 1830, 10 vols., Bath: Carrington, 1832. Green, John Richard : A Short History of the English People, 4 vols., New York : Harper, 1882. There is also an illustrated edition, the text considerably abridged, in 4 vols., New York : Harper, 1890-1895. Correspondence of the Family of Hatton . . . 1661-1704. Edited by E. M. Thompson, 2 vols., Printed for the Camden Society, 1878. Hearne, Thomas: Reliquiae Hearnianx, edited by Philip Bliss, 3 vols., Oxford, 1869. Hettner, H. J. T : Literaturgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, In drei Theilen, Braunschweig, "1872. (Vol. Is Geschichte der engli- schen Literatur . . . 1660-1770.) Lecky, W. E. H. : A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols., London : Longmans, 1878-1890. Luttrell, Narcissus: A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, 6 vols., Oxford : University Press, 1857. McCarthy, Justin : The Reign of Queen Anne, 2 vols., New York : Harpers, 1902. BIBLIOGRAPHY lxi Macaulay's History of England, Chapters xi ff. Marlborough : Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marl- borough, Illustrative of the Court and Times of Queen Anne, etc., 2 vols., second edition, London : Colburn, 1838. [Minto, William] : " Steele " in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nichols, John : Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 9 vols., London, 1812-1815. (Index in Vol. VII.) Nichols, John : Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols., London, 1817-1858. Phelps, W. L. : The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement, Boston: Ginn, 1893. Ranke, L. von : A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, 6 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875. (Only the last three volumes concern us.) Sichel, Walter : Bolingbroke and His Times, 2 vols., London : James Nesbit, 1901-1902. Somerville, Thomas : The History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne, with ... an Appendix containing Original Papers, London : A. Strahan et als., 1798. Stanhope, Earl (Viscount Mahon) : History of England . . . 1701- 1713, 2 vols., London: Murray, 1872. Stanhope (Lord Mahon) : History of England . . . 17 13-1783, 7 vols., Boston : Little and Brown, 1853-1854. (3rd edition, revised.) Sydney, W. C. : England and the English in the Eighteenth Cen- tury, 2 vols., London: Ward and Downey, 1891. Thoresby, Ralph: The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, . . . (1677-1724), 2 vols., London : Colbum and Bentley, 1830. Ward, A. W. : A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne, 3 vols., London: Macmillan, 1899. Wentworth Papers: The Wentworth Papers, 1705-1739, London: Wyman, 1883. Wyon, F. W. . The History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne, 2 vols., London : Chapman and Hall, 1876. A LETTER FROM ITALY, TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES LORD HALIFAX, IN THE YEAR MDCCI. Salve magna parens frugum Saturnia tellus, Magna virAm ! tibi res antiqutz laudis et artis Aggredior, sanctos ausus recludere /antes. — Virg. Geor. a. While you, my Lord, the rural shades admire, And from Britannia's publick posts retire, Nor longer, her ungrateful sons to please, For their advantage sacrifice your ease ; Me into foreign realms my fate conveys, 5 Through nations fruitful of immortal lays, Where the soft season and inviting clime Conspire to trouble your repose with rhime. For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, 10 Poetick fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on Classic ground ; For here the Muse so oft her Harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung, Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows, 15 And ev'ry stream in heavenly numbers flows. A LETTER FROM ITALY How am I pleas'd to search the hills and woods For rising springs and celebrated floods ! To view the Nar, tumultuous in his course, And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source, *° To see the Mincio draw his watry store Through the long windings of a fruitful shore, And hoary Attala's infected tide O'er the warm bed of smoaking sulphur glide. Fir'd with a thousand raptures I survey 25 Eridanus through flowery meadows stray, The king of floods ! that rolling o'er the plains The towering Alps of half their moisture drains, And proudly swoln with a whole winter's snows, Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows. 30 Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng, I look for streams immortaliz'd in song, That lost in silence and oblivion lye, (Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry) Yet run for-ever by the Muse's skill, 35 And in the smooth description murmur still. Sometimes to gentle Tiber I retire, And the fam'd river's Empty shores admire, That destitute of strength derives its course From thrifty urns and an unfruitful source ; 40 Yet sung so often in poetick lays, With scorn the Danube and the Nile surveys ; So high the deathless Muse exalts her theme ! Such was the Bom, a poor inglorious stream, That in Hibernian vales obscurely stray'd, 45 And unobserv'd in wild Meanders play'd ; 'Till by Your lines and Nassau's sword renown'd, A LETTER FROM ITALY 3 Its rising billows through the world resound, Where-e'er the Heroe's godlike acts can pierce, Or where the fame of an immortal verse. 50 Oh cou'd the Muse my ravish'd breast inspire With warmth like yours, and raise an equal fire, Unnumber'd beauties in my verse shou'd shine, And Virgil's Italy shou'd yield to mine ! See how the golden groves around me smile, 55 That shun the coast of Britain's stormy Isle, Or when transplanted and preserv'd with care, Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air. Here kindly warmth their mounting juice ferments To nobler tastes, and more exalted scents : 60 Ev'n the rough rocks with tender Myrtle bloom, And trodden Weeds send out a rich perfume. Bear me, some God, to Baia's gentle seats, Or cover me in Umbria's green retreats ; Where western gales eternally reside, 65 And all the seasons lavish all their pride : Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers together rise, And the whole year in gay confusion lies. Immortal glories in my mind revive, And in my soul a thousand passions strive, 70 When Rome's exalted beauties I descry Magnificent in piles of mine lye. An amphitheater's amazing height Here fills my eye with terror and delight, That on its publick shows Unpeopled Rome, 75 And held Uncrowded nations in its womb : Here pillars rough with sculpture pierce the skies : And here the proud triumphal arches rise, A LETTER FROM ITALY Where the old Romans deathless acts display'd, Their base degenerate progeny upbraid : 80 Whole rivers here forsake the fields below, And wond'ring at their height through airy channels flow. Still to new scenes my wand'ring Muse retires, And the dumb show of breathing rocks admires ; Where the smooth chissel all its force has shown, 85 And soften'd into flesh the rugged stone. In solemn silence, a majestick band, Heroes, and Gods, and Roman Consuls stand, Stern tyrants, whom their cruelties renown, And emperors in Parian marble frown ; 90 While the bright dames, to whom they humbly su'd, Still show the charms that their proud hearts subdu'd. Fain wou'd I Raphael's godlike art rehearse, And show th' immortal labours in my verse, Where from the mingled strength of shade and light 95 A new creation rises to my sight, Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow, So warm with life his blended colours glow. From theme to theme with secret pleasure tost, Amidst the soft variety I'm lost : 100 Here pleasing airs my ravisht soul confound With circling notes and labyrinths of sound ; Here domes and temples rise in distant views, And opening palaces invite my Muse. How has kind heav'n adorn'd the happy land, 103 And scatter'd blessings with a wasteful hand ! But what avail her unexhausted stores, Her bloorning mountains, and her sunny shores, With all the gifts that heav'n and earth impart, A LETTER FROM ITALY 5 The smiles of nature, and the charms of art, no While proud Oppression in her vallies reigns, And Tyranny usurps her happy plains ? The poor inhabitant beholds in vain The red'ning Orange and the swelling grain : Joyless he sees the growing Oils and Wines, 115 And in the Myrtle's fragrant shade repines : Starves, in the midst of nature's bounty curst, And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst. Oh Liberty, thou Goddess heavenly bright, Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight ! 120 Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train ; Eas'd of her load Subjection grows more light, And Poverty looks chearful in thy sight ; Thou mak'st the gloomy face of Nature gay, 125 Giv'st beauty to the Sun, and pleasure to the Day. Thee, Goddess, thee, Britannia's Isle adores ; How has she oft exhausted all her stores, How oft in fields of death thy presence sought, Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought ! 130 On foreign mountains may the Sun refine The Grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine, With Citron groves adorn a distant soil, And the fat Olive swell with floods of oil : We envy not the warmer clime, that lies 135 In ten degrees of more indulgent skies, Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine, Tho' o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine : 'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's Isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains 140 smile. A LETTER FROM ITALY Others with towering piles may please the sight, And in their proud aspiring domes delight ; A nicer touch to the stretcht canvas give, Or teach their animated rocks to live : Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, 145 And hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, And answer her afflicted neighbours' pray'r. The Dane and Swede, rous'd up by fierce alarms, Bless the wise conduct of her pious arms : 15° Soon as her fleets appear, their terrors cease, And all the northern world lies hush'd in peace. Th' ambitious Gaul beholds with secret dread Her thunder aim'd at his aspiring head, And fain her godlike sons wou'd disunite 15s By foreign gold, or by domestick spite ; But strives in vain to conquer or divide, Whom Nassau's arms defend and counsels guide. Fir'd with the name, which I so oft have found The distant climes and different tongues resound, 160 I bridle in my strugling Muse with pain, That longs to launch into a bolder strain. But I've already troubled you too long, Nor dare attempt a more advent'rous song. My humble verse demands a softer theme, 165 A painted meadow, or a purling stream ; Unfit for Heroes ; whom immortal lays, And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, shou'd praise. THE CAMPAIGN, A POEM. While crouds of Princes your deserts proclaim, Proud in their number to enroll your name ; While Emperors to you commit their cause, And AJVNA's praises crown the vast applause ; Accept, great leader, what the Muse recites, 3 That in ambitious verse attempts your fights, Fir'd and transported with a theme so new. Ten thousand wonders op'ning to my view Shine forth at once ; sieges and storms appear, And wars and conquests fill th' important year, 10 Rivers of blood I see, and hills of slain, An Iliad rising out of One campaign. The haughty Gaul beheld, with tow'ring pride, His ancient bounds enlarg'd on ev'ry side, Pirate's lofty barriers were subdued, »5 And in the midst of his wide empire stood ; . Ausonia's states, the victor to restrain, Opposed their Alpes and Appeiiines in vain, Nor found themselves, with strength of rocks immur'd, Behind their everlasting hills secur'd ; 20 The rising Danube its long race began, 7 THE CAMPAIGN And half its course through the new conquests ran ; Amaz'd and anxious for her Sovereign's fates, . Germania trembled through a hundred states ; Great Leopold himself was seiz'd with fear ; ' " 25 He gaz'd around, but saw no succour near ; He gaz'd, and half abandon'd to despair His hopes on heav'n, and confidence in pray'r. To Britain's Queen the Nations turn their eyes, On her resolves the western world relies, 30 Confiding still, amidst its dire alarms, In ANNA'S councils, and in Churchill's arms. Thrice happy Britain, from the kingdoms rent, To sit the guardian of the continent ! That sees her bravest son advanc'd so high, 35 And flourishing so near her Prince's eye ; Thy fav'rites grow not up by fortune's sport, Or from the crimes, or follies of a court ; On the firm basis of desert they rise, From long-try'd faith, and friendship's holy tyes : 40 Their Soveraign's well-distinguish'd smiles they share, Her ornaments in peace, her strength in war ; The nation thanks them with a publick voice, By show'rs of blessings heaven approves their choice ; Envy it self is dumb, in wonder lost, 45 And factions strive who shall applaud 'em most. Soon as soft vernal breezes warm the sky, Britannia's colours in the zephyrs fly ; Her Chief already has his march begun, Crossing the provinces himself had won, 50 'Till the Moselle, appearing from afar, Retards the progress of the moving war. Delightful stream, had Nature bid her fall THE CAMPAIGN 9 In distant climes, far from the perjur'd Gaul ; But now a purchase to the sword she lyes, 55 Her harvests for uncertain owners rise, Each vineyard doubtful of its master grows, And to the victor's bowl each vintage flows. The discontented shades of slaughter'd hosts, That wander'd on her banks, her heroes ghosts 60 Hope'd, when they saw Britannia's arms appear, The vengeance due to their great deaths was near. Our god-like leader, ere the stream he past, The mighty scheme of all his labours cast, Forming the wond'rous year within his thought ; 65 His bosom glow'd with battles yet unfought. The long laborious march he first surveys, And joins the distant Danube to the Maese, Between whose floods such pathless forests grow, Such mountains rise, so many rivers flow : 7° The toil looks lovely in the heroe's eyes, And danger serves but to enhance the prize. Big with the fate of Europe, he renews His dreadful course, and the proud foe pursues : Infected by the burning Scorpion's heat, 75 The sultry gales round his chaf 'd temples beat, 'Till on the borders of the Maine he finds Defensive shadows, and refreshing winds. Our British youth, with in-born freedom bold, Unnumber'd scenes of servitude behold, 80 Nations of slaves, with tyranny debas'd, (Their maker's image more than half defac'd) Hourly instructed, as they urge their toil, To prize their Queen, and love their native soil. io THE CAMPAIGN Still to the rising Sun they take their way 85 Through clouds of dust, and gain upon the day. When now the Ncckar on its friendly coast With cooling streams revives the fainting host, That chearfully its labours past forgets, The midnight watches, and the noon-day heats. 90 O'er prostrate towns and palaces they pass, (Now cover'd o'er with weeds, and hid in grass) Breathing revenge ; whilst anger and disdain Fire ev'ry breast, and boil in ev'ry vein : Here shatter'd walls, like broken rocks, from far 95 Rise up in hideous views, the guilt of war, Whilst here the Vine o'er hills of ruine climbs, Industrious to conceal great Bourbon's crimes. A At length the fame of England's heroe drew Eugenio to the glorious interview. 100 Great souls by instinct to each other turn, Demand alliance, and in friendship burn ; A sudden friendship, while with stretch'd-out rays They meet each other, mingling blaze with blaze. Polish'd in courts, and harden'd in the field, 105 Renown'd for conquest, and in council skill'd, Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood ; Lodg'd in the soul, with virtue over-rul'd, Inflam'd by reason, and by reason cool'd, no In hours of peace content to be unknown, And only in the field of battel shown : To souls like these, in mutual friendship join'd, Heaven dares entrust the cause of human-kind. Britannia's graceful sons appear in arms, 115 Her harras'd troops the heroe's presence warms, THE CAMPAIGN 1 1 Whilst the high hills and rivers all around With thund'ring peals of British shouts resound : Doubling their speed they march with fresh delight, Eager for glory, and require the fight. izo So the stanch Hound the trembling Deer pursues, And smells his footsteps in the tainted dews, The tedious track unrav'ling by degrees : But when the scent comes warm in ev'ry breeze, Fir'd at the near approach, he shoots away 125 On his full stretch, and bears upon his prey. The march concludes, the various realms are past, Th' immortal Schellenberg appears at last : Like hills th' aspiring ramparts rise on high, Like vallies at their feet the trenches lye ; 1 3° Batt'ries on batt'ries guard each fatal pass, Threat'ning destruction ; rows of hollow brass, Tube behind tube, the dreadful entrance keep, Whilst in their wombs ten thousand thunders sleep : Great Churchill owns, charm'd with the glorious sight, '35 His march o'er-paid by such a promis'd fight. The western Sun now shot a feeble ray, And faintly scatter'd the remains of day, Ev'ning approach'd ; but oh what hosts of foes Were never to behold that ev'ning close ! 140 Thick'ning their ranks, and wedg'd in firm array, The close compacted Britons win their way ; In vain the cannon their throng'd war deface'd With tracts of death, and laid the battel waste ; Still pressing forward to the fight, they broke MS Through flames of sulphur, and a night of smoke, 'Till slaughter'd legions fill'd the trench below, And bore their fierce avengers to the foe. THE CAMPAIGN High on the works the mingling hosts engage ; The battel kindled into tenfold rage 150 With show'rs of bullets and with storms of fire Burns in full fury ; heaps on heaps expire, Nations with nations mix'd confus'dly die, And lost in one promiscuous carnage lye. How many gen'rous Britons meet their doom, 155 New to the field, and heroes in the bloom ! Th' illustrious youths, that left their native shore To march where Britons never march'd before, (O fatal love of fame ! O glorious heat Only destructive to the brave and great !) 160 After such toils o'ercome, such dangers past, Stretch'd on Bavarian ramparts breathe their last. But hold, my Muse, may no complaints appear, Nor blot the day with an ungrateful tear : While Marlbro lives Britannia's stars dispense 165 A friendly light, and shine in innocence. Plunging thro' seas of blood his fiery steed Where-e'er his friends retire, or foes succeed ; Those he supports, these drives to sudden flight, And turns the various fortune of the fight. 170 Forbear, great man, renown'd in arms, forbear To brave the thickest terrors of the war, Nor hazard thus, confus'd in crouds of foes, Britannia's safety, and the world's repose ; Let nations anxious for thy life abate 175 This scorn of danger, and contempt of fate : Thou livest not for thy self; thy Queen demands Conquest and peace from thy victorious hands ; Kingdoms and empires in thy fortune join, And Europjs destiny depends on thine. 180 THE CAMPAIGN 13 At length the long-disputed pass they gain, By crouded armies fortify'd in vain ; The war breaks in, the fierce Bavarians yield, And see their camp with British legions fill'd. So Belgian mounds bear on their shatter'd sides 185 The sea's whole weight encreas'd with swelling tides ; But if the rushing wave a passage finds, Enrage'd by wat'ry moons, and warring winds, The trembling Peasant sees his country round Cover'd with tempests, and in oceans drown'd. 190 The few surviving foes disperst in flight, (Refuse of swords, and gleanings of a fight) In ev'ry russling wind the victor hear, And Marlbro's form in ev'ry shadow fear, 'Till the dark cope of night with kind embrace 195 Befriends the rout, and covers their disgrace. To Donawert, with unresisted force, The gay victorious army bends its course. The growth of meadows, and the pride of fields, Whatever spoils Bavaria's summer yields, 200 (The Danube's great increase) Britannia shares, The food of armies, and support of wars : With magazines of death, destructive balls, And cannons doom'd to batter Landau's walls, The victor finds each hidden cavern stor'd, 205 And turns their fury on their guilty Lord. Deluded Prince ! how is thy greatness crost, And all the gaudy dream of empire lost, That proudly set thee on a fancy'd throne, And made imaginary realms thy own ! 210 Thy troops, that now behind the Danube join, I 4 THE CAMPAIGN Shall shortly seek for shelter from the Rhine, Nor find it there : Surrounded with alarms, Thou hope'st th' assistance of the Gallic arms ; The Gallic arms in safety shall advance, 2' And croud thy standards with the power of France, While to exalt thy doom, th' aspiring Gaul Shares thy destruction, and adorns thy fall. Unbounded courage and compassion join'd, Temp'ring each other in the victor's mind, 220 Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the Hero and the Man compleat. Long did he strive th' obdurate foe to gain By proffer'd grace, but long he strove in vain ; 'Till fir'd at length he thinks it vain to spare 225 His rising wrath, and gives a loose to war. In vengeance rous'd the soldier fills his hand With sword and fire, and ravages the land, A thousand villages to ashes turns, In crackling flames a thousand harvests bums. 230 To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat, And mixt with bellowing herds confus'dly bleat ; Their trembling lords the common shade partake, And cries of infants sound in ev'ry brake : The list'ning soldier fixt in sorrow stands, 235 Loth to obey his leader's just commands ; The leader grieves, by gen'rous pity sway'd, To see his just commands so well obey'd. But now the trumpet terrible from far In shriller clangors animates the war, 240 Confed'rate drums in fuller consort beat, And echoing hills the loud alarm repeat : Gallia's proud standards, to Bavaria's join'd, THE CAMPAIGN 15 Unfurl their gilded Lilies in the wind ; The daring Prince his blasted hopes renews, 245 And while the thick embattled host he views Stretcht out in deep array, and dreadful length, His heart dilates, and glories in his strength. The fatal day its mighty course began, That the griev'd world had long desir'd in vain : 250 States that their new captivity bemoan'd, Armies of martyrs that in exile groan'd, Sighs from the depth of gloomy dungeons heard, And prayers in bitterness of soul prefer'd, Europe's loud cries, that Providence assail'd, 255 And ANNA'S ardent vows, at length prevail'd ; The day was come when Heaven design'd to show His care and conduct of the world below. Behold in awful march and dread array The long-extended squadrons shape their way ! 260 Death, in approaching terrible, imparts An anxious horrour to the bravest hearts ; Yet do their beating breasts demand the strife, And thirst of glory quells the love of life. No vulgar fears can British minds controul : 265 Heat of revenge, and noble pride of soul O'er-look the foe, advantag'd by his post, Lessen his numbers, and contract his host : Tho' fens and floods possest the middle space, That unprovok'd they would have fear'd to pass ; 270 Nor fens nor floods can stop Britannia's bands, When her proud foe rang'd on their borders stands. / But O, my Muse, what numbers wilt thou find J To sing the furious troops in battel join'd ! 1 6 THE CAMPAIGN Methinks I hear the dram's tumultuous sound 27 S The victor's shouts and dying groans confound, The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, And all the thunder of the battel rise. 'Twas then great Marlbr6's mighty soul was prov'd, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmov'd, 280 Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examin'd all the dreadful scenes of war ; In peaceful thought the field of death survey 'd, To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, Inspir'd repuls'd battalions to engage, 285 And taught the doubtful battel where to rage. So when an Angel by divine command With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 290 And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirl-wind, and directs the stormj But see the haughty houshold-troops advance ! The dread of Europe, and the pride of France. The war's whole art each private soldier knows, 295 And with a Gen'ral's love of conquest glows ; Proudly he marches on, and void of fear Laughs at the shaking of the British spear : Vain insolence ! with native freedom brave The meanest Briton scorns the highest slave ; 300 Contempt and fury fire their souls by turns, Each nation's glory in each warriour burns, Each fights, as in his arm th' important day And all the fate of his great monarch lay : A thousand glorious actions, that might claim 305 Triumphant laurels, and immortal fame, Confus'd in crouds of glorious actions lye, THE CAMPAIGN 17 And troops of heroes undistinguish'd dye. O Dormer, how can I behold thy fate, And not the wonders of thy youth relate ! 310 How can I see the gay, the brave, the young, Fall in the cloud of war, and lye unsung ! In joys of conquest he resigns his breath, And, fill'd with England's glory, smiles in death. The rout begins, the Gallic squadrons run, v 315 Compell'd in crouds to meet the fate they shun ; Thousands of fiery steeds with wounds transfix'd Floating in gore, with their dead masters mixt, Midst heaps of spears and standards driv'n around, Lie in the Danube's bloody whirl-pools drown'd. 320 Troops of bold youths, born on the distant Soane, Or sounding borders of the rapid Rhbne, Or where the Seine her flow'ry fields divides, Or where the Loire through winding vineyards glides ; In heaps the rolling billows sweep away, 325 And into Scythian seas their bloated corps convey. From Bleinheim's tow'rs the Gaul, with wild affright, Beholds the various havock of the fight ; His waving banners, that so oft had stood Planted in fields of death, and streams of blood, 330 So wont the guarded enemy to reach, And rise triumphant in the fatal breach, Or pierce the broken foe's remotest lines, The hardy veteran with tears resigns./ Unfortunate Tallard! Oh who can name 335 The pangs of rage, of sorrow, and of shame, That with mixt tumult in thy bosom swell'd ! When first thou saw'st thy bravest troops repell'd, Thine only son pierc'd with a deadly wound, 1 8 THE CAMPAIGN Choak'd in his blood, and gasping on the ground, 34<> Thy self in bondage by the victor kept ! The Chief, the Father, and the Captive wept. An English Muse is touch'd with gen'rous woe, And in th' unhappy man forgets the foe. Greatly distrest ! thy loud complaints forbear, 345 Blame not the turns of fate, and chance of war ; Give thy brave foes their due, nor blush to own The fatal field by such great leaders won, The field whence fam'd Eugenio bore away Only the second honours of the day. 35° With floods of gore that from the vanquisht fell The marshes stagnate, and the rivers swell. Mountains of slain lye heap'd upon the ground, Or 'midst the roarings of the Danube drown'd ; Whole captive hosts the conqueror detains 355 In painful bondage, and inglorious chains ; Ev'n those who 'scape the fetters and the sword, Nor seek the fortunes of a happier lord, Their raging King dishonours, to compleat Marlbr6's great work, and finish the defeat. 360 From Memminghen's high domes, and Augsburg's walls, The distant battel drives th' insulting Gauls, Free'd by the terror of the victor's name The rescu'd states his great protection claim ; Whilst Ulme th' approach of her deliverer waits, 365 And longs to open her obsequious gates. The hero's breast still swells with great designs, In ev'ry thought the tow'ring genius shines : If to the foe his dreadful course he bends, O'er the wide continent his march extends ; 370 THE CAMPAIGN 19 If sieges in his lab'ring thoughts are form'd, Camps are assaulted, and an army storm'd ; If to the fight his active soul is bent, The fate of Europe turns on its event. What distant land, what region can afford 375 An action worthy his victorious sword : Where will, he next the flying Gaul defeat, To make the series of his toils compleat? Where the swoln Rhine rushing with all its force Divides the hostile nations in its course, 380 While each contracts its bounds, or wider grows, Enlarg'd or straiten'd as the river flows, On Gallia's side a mighty bulwark stands, That all the wide extended plain commands ; Twice, since the war was kindled, has it try'd 385 The victor's rage, and twice has chang'd its side ; As oft whole armies, with the prize o'erjoy'd, Have the long summer on its walls employ'd. Hither our mighty Chief his arms directs, Hence future triumphs from the war expects ; 39° And, tho' the dog-star had its course begun, Carries his arms still nearer to the Sun : Fixt on the glorious action, he forgets The change of seasons, and increase of heats : No toils are painful that can danger show, 395 No climes unlovely, that contain a foe. The roving Gaul, to his own bounds restrain'd, Learns to encamp within his native land, But soon as the victorious host he spies, From hill to hill, from stream to stream he flies : 4 00 Such dire impressions in his heart remain Of Marlbr6's sword, and Hocstet's fatal plain : 20 THE CAMPAIGN In vain Britannic?* mighty chief besets Their shady coverts, and obscure retreats ; They fly the conqueror's approaching fame, 4°5 That bears the force of armies in his name. . ., , .M Austria!?, young monarch, whose impenal sway y*. / Sceptres and thrones are destin'd to obey, Whose boasted ancestry so high extends That in the pagan gods his lineage ends, 410 Comes from a-far, in gratitude to own The great supporter of his father's throne : What tides of glory to his bosom ran, Clasp'd in th' embraces of the god-like man ! How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt 413 To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt, Such easie greatness, such a graceful port, So turn'd and finish'd for the camp or court ! Achilles thus was form'd with ev'ry grace, And Nireus shone but in the second place ; 420 Thus the great father of Almighty Rome (Divinely flusht with an immortal bloom That Cytherea's fragrant breath bestow'd) In all the charms of his bright mother glow'd. The royal youth by Marlbr6's presence charm'd, 425 Taught by his counsels, by his actions warm'd, On Landau with redoubled fury falls, Discharges all his thunder on its walls, O'er mines and caves of death provokes the fight, And learns to conquer in the Hero's sight. 430 The British Chief, for mighty toils renown'd, Increas'd in titles, and with conquests crown'd, THE CAMPAIGN 21 To Belgian coasts his tedious march renews, And the long windings of the Rhine pursues, Clearing its borders from usurping foes, 435 And blest by rescu'd nations as he goes. Treves fears no more, free'd from its dire alarms ; And Traerbach feels the terror of his arms, Seated on rocks her proud foundations shake, While MarlbrO presses to the bold attack, 440 Plants all his batt'ries, bids his cannon roar, And shows how Landau might have fall'n before. Scar'd at his near approach, great Louis fears Vengeance reserv'd for his declining years, Forgets his thirst of universal sway, 445 And scarce can teach his subjects to obey ; His arms he finds on vain attempts employ'd, Th' ambitious projects for his race destroy'd, The work of ages sunk in One campaign, And lives of millions sacrific'd in vain., 450 Such are th' effects of ANNA'S royal cares : By her, Britannia, great in foreign wars, Ranges through nations, wheresoe'er disjoin'd, Without the wonted aid of sea and wind. By her th' unfetter'd Ister's states are free, 455 And taste the sweets of English liberty : But who can tell the joys of those that lye Beneath the constant influence of her eye ! Whilst in diffusive show'rs her bounties fall Like heaven's indulgence, and descend on all, 460 Secure the happy, succour the distrest, Make ev'ry subject glad, and a whole people blest. Thus wou'd I fain Britannia's wars rehearse, In the smooth records of a faithful verse ; v THE CAMPAIGN That, if such numbers can o'er time prevail, 465 May tell posterity the wond'rous tale. When actions, unadorn'd, are faint and weak, Cities and Countries must be taught to speak ; Gods may descend in factions from the skies, And Rivers from their oozy beds arise ; 47° Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays, And round the Hero cast a borrow'd blaze. Marlbr6's exploits appear divinely bright, And proudly shine in their own native light ; Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast, 475 And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most. CATO. TRAGEDY. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, BY His Majesty's Servants. Ecce Spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat, intentus operi suo, Deus / Ecce par Deo dignum, vir fortis cum mala fortuna compositus t Non video, inquam, quid habeat in terris Jupiter pulchrius, si convertere animum velit, quam ut spectet Cato- nem, jam partibus non semel fractis, nihilominiis inter ruinas publicas erectum. — Sen. de Divin. Prov. 23 Dramatis Personae. 1 MEN. CATO. Lucius, a Senator. Sempronius, a Senator. Juba, Prince of Numidia. Syphax, General of the Numidians. ' \ Sons of Cato. Marcus, ) Decius,- Ambassador from Caesar. Mutineers, Guards, &c. WOMEN. Marcia, Daughter to Cato. Lucia, Daughter to Lucius. SCENE a large Hall in the Governor's Palace of Utica. 1 In Tickell the names of the characters are followed by the names of the actors who played them at the first performance. 34 ACT V. SCENE I. CATO solus, sitting in a thoughtful posture : In his hand Plato'j book on the Immortality of the Soul. A drawn sword on the table by him. It must be so — Plato, thou reason'st well ! — Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into nought ? why shrinks the soul 5 Back on her self, and startles at destruction? Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 'Tis heaven it self, that points out an Hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity ! thou pleasing, dreadful, thought ! 10 Through what variety of untry'd being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! The wide, th' unbounded prospect, lyes before me ; But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it. Here will I hold. If there's a pow'r above us, 15 (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works) he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in, must be happy. But when ! or where ! — This world was made for Casar. I'm weary of conjectures — This must end 'em. 20 \_Laying his hand on his sword. Thus am I doubly arm'd : my death and life, My bane and antidote are both before me : This in a moment brings me to an end ; 25 26 CATO But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles 2 S At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 3° The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. What means this heaviness that hangs upon me? This lethargy that creeps through all my senses? Nature oppress'd, and harrass'd out with care, Sinks down to rest. This once I'll favour her, 35 That my awaken'd soul may take her flight, Renew'd in all her strength, and fresh with life, An offering fit for heaven. Let guilt or fear Disturb man's rest : Cato knows neither of 'em, Indifferent in his choice to sleep or die. 40 SCENE II. Cato, Portius. Cato. But hah ! how's this, my son? why this intrusion? Were not my orders that I would be private? Why am I disobey'd? Portius. Alas, my father ! What means this sword? this instrument of death? 45 Let me convey it hence ! Cato, Rash youth, forbear ! CATO 2^ Fortius. O let the prayers, th' entreaties of your friends, Their tears, their common danger, wrest it from you. Cato. Would'st thou betray me? would'st thou give me up 50 A slave, a captive, into C&sar's hands? Retire, and learn obedience to a father, Or know, young man ! — Fortius. Look not thus sternly on me ; You know I'd rather die than disobey you. 55 Cato. Tis well ! again I'm master of my self. Now, CcBsar, let thy troops beset our gates, And barr each avenue, thy gathering fleets O'erspread the sea, and stop up every port ; Cato shall open to himself a passage, 60 And mock thy hopes — Fortius. O Sir, forgive your son, Whose grief hangs heavy on him ! O my father ! How am I sure it is not the last time I e'er shall call you so ! be not displeased, 65 . O be not angry with me whilst I weep, And, in the anguish of my heart, beseech you To quit the dreadful purpose of your soul ! Cato. Thou hast been ever good and dutiful. [Embracing him. Weep not, my son. All will be well again. 70 The righteous gods, whom I have sought to please. Will succour Cato, and preserve his children. 28 CATO Portius. Your words give comfort to my drooping heart Cato. Portius, thou may'st rely upon my conduct. Thy father will not act what misbecomes him. 75 But go, my son, and see if aught be wanting Among thy father's friends ; see them embarked ; And tell me if the winds and seas befriend them. My soul is quite weigh'd down with care, and asks The soft refreshment of a moment's sleep. 80 Portius. My thoughts are more at ease, my heart revives. SCENE III. Portius and Marcia. Portius. O Marcia, O my sister, still there's hope ! Our father will not cast away a life So needful to us all, and to his country. He is retired to rest, and seems to cherish 85 Thoughts full of peace. He has dispatcht me hence With orders, that bespeak a mind composed, And studious for the safety of his friends. Marcia, take care that none disturb his slumbers. Marcia. O ye immortal powers, that guard the just, 90 Watch round his couch, and soften his repose, Banish his sorrows, and becalm his soul With easie dreams ; remember all his virtues ! And show mankind that goodness is your care. CATO 29 SCENE IV. Lucia and Marcia. Lucia. Where is your father, Marcia, where is Cato? 95 Marcia. Lucia, speak low, he is retired to rest. Lucia, I feel a gently-dawning hope Rise in my soul. We shall be happy still. Lucia. Alas, I tremble when I think on Cato, In very view, in every thought I tremble ! 100 Cato is stern, and awful as a God, He knows not how to wink at humane frailty, Or pardon weakness, that he never felt. Marcia. Though stern and awful to the foes of Rome, He is all goodness, Lucia, always mild, 105 Compassionate, and gentle to his friends. FilPd with domestick tenderness, the best, The kindest father ! I have ever found him Easie, and good, and bounteous to my wishes. Lucia. 'Tis his consent alone can make us blest. no Marcia, we both are equally involv'd In the same intricate, perplext, distress. The cruel hand of fate, that has destroy'd Thy brother Marcus, whom we both lament — Marcia. And ever shall lament, unhappy youth ! 115 3° CATO Lucia. Has set my soul at large, and now I stand Loose of my Vow. But who knows Cato's thoughts? Who knows how yet he may dispose of Fortius, Or how he has determin'd of thy self ? Marcia. Let him but live ! commit the rest to heaven. 120 Enter Lucius. Lucius. Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man ! Marcia, I have seen thy godlike father : Some power invisible supports his soul, And bears it up in all its wonted greatness. A kind refreshing sleep is fallen upon him : 125 1 saw him stretcht at ease, his fancy lost In pleasing dreams ; as I drew near his couch, He smiled, and cry'd, Ccesar thou canst not hurt me. Marcia. His mind still labours with some dreadful thought. Lucius. Lucia, why all this grief, these floods of sorrow? 130 Dry up thy tears, my child, we all are safe While Cato lives — his presence will protect us. Enter Juba. Juba. Lucius, the horsemen are return'd from viewing The number, strength, and posture of our foes, Who now encamp within a short hour's march. 135 On the high point of yon bright western tower CATO 31 We kenn them from afar, the setting Sun Plays on their shining arms and burnish'd helmets, And covers all the field with gleams of fire. Lucius. Marcia, 'tis time we should awake thy father, 140 Ccesar is still disposed to give us terms, And waits at distance 'till he hears from Cato. Enter Portius. Portius, thy looks speak somewhat of importance. What tidings dost thou bring? methinks I see Unusual gladness sparkling in thy eyes. 145 Portius. As I was hasting to the port, where now My father's friends, impatient for a passage, Accuse the ling'ring winds, a sail arrived From Pompey's son, who through the realms of Spain Calls out for vengeance on his father's death, 150 And rouses the whole nation up to arms. Were Cato at their head, once more might Rome Assert her rights, and claim her liberty. But heark ! what means that groan ! O give me way, And let me fly into my father's presence. 155 Lucius. Cato, amidst his slumbers, thinks on Rome, And in the wild disorder of his soul Mourns o'er his country. — hah ! a second groan ! — Heaven guard us all — Marcia. Alas, 'tis not the voice 160 Of one who sleeps ! 'tis agonizing pain, Tis death is in that sound — 32 CATO Re-enter Portius. Portius. O sight of woe ! O Marcia, what we fear'd is come to pass 1 Cato is fallen upon his sword — 165 O Portius, Lucius - Hide all the horrours of thy mournful tale, And let us guess the rest. Portius. I've raised him up, And placed him in his chair, where pale, and faint, 170 He gasps for breath, and, as his life flows from him, Demands to see his friends. His servants weeping, Obsequious to his orders, bear him hither. \The back Scene opens, and discovers Cato. Marcia. O heaven assist me in this dreadful hour To pay the last sad duties to my father. 175 Juba. These are thy triumphs, thy exploits, O Ccesar! Lucius. Now is Rome fallen indeed ! — [Cato brought forward in his chair. Cato. Here set me down — Portius come near me — are my friends embark'd? Can any thing be thought of for their service? 180 Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain. — O Lucius, art thou here ? — thou art too good ! — CATO 33 Let this our friendship live between our children ; Make Portius happy in thy daughter Lucia. Alas poor man, he weeps ! — Marcia, my daughter — 185 — O bend me forward ! — Juba loves thee, Marcia. A Senator of Rome, while Rome survived, Would not have match'd his Daughter with a King, But Ccesar's arms have thrown down all distinction ; Whoe'er is Brave and Virtuous, is a Roman. — 190 — I'm sick to death — O when shall I get loose From this vain world, th' abode of guilt and sorrow ! — And yet methinks a beam of light breaks in On my departing soul. Alas, I fear I've been too hasty. O ye powers, that search 1-95 The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not ! — The best may erre, but you are good, and — oh ! [Dies. Lucius. There fled the greatest soul that ever warm'd A Roman breast ; O Cato I O my friend ! 200 Thy will shall be religiously observ'd. But let us bear this awful corps to Ccesar, And lay it in his sight, that it may stand A fence betwixt us and the victor's wrath ; Cato, tho' dead, shall still protect his friends. 205 From hence, let fierce contending nations know What dire effects from civil discord flow. 'Tis this that shakes our country with alarms, And gives up Rome a prey to Roman arms, Produces fraud, and cruelty, and strife, 210 And robs the Guilty world of Cato's life. THE TATLER. N° 155. Thursday, April 6. 1710. Aliena negotia curat Excussus propriis. Hor. From my own Apartment, April 5. There lived some years since within my neighbourhood a very grave person, an Upholsterer, who seemed a man of more than ordinary application to business. He was a very early riser, and was often abroad two or three hours before any of 5 his neighbours. He had a particular carefulness in the knit- ting of his brows, and a kind of impatience in all his motions, that plainly discovered he was always intent on matters of importance. Upon my enquiry into his life and conversation, I found him to be the greatest Newsmonger in our quarter; 10 that he rose before day to read the Post-man; and that he would take two or three turns to the other end of the town before his neighbours were up, to see if there were any Dutch Mails come in. He had a wife and several children ; but was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in iS his own family, and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King Augustus's welfare than that of his nearest relations. He looked extremely thin in a dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in a Westerly wind. This indefatigable kind of life was the ruine of his shop ; for about the time that his 20 favourite Prince left the Crown of Poland, he broke and disappeared. 34 THE TATLER 35 This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, till about three days ago, as I was walking in St. James's Park, I heard some body at a distance hemming after me : And who should it be but my old neighbour the Upholsterer? I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby superflu- 5 ities in his dress : For notwithstanding that it was a very sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose great Coat and a Muff, with a long Campaign-whig out of curl ; to which he had added the ornament of a pair of black Garters buckled under the knee. Upon his coming up to me, I was going to enquire 10 into his present circumstances ; but was prevented by his ask- ing me, with a whisper, Whether the last Letters brought any accounts that one might rely upon from Bender ? I told him, None that I heard of; and asked him, Whether he had yet married his eldest daughter? He told me, No. But pray, says 15 he, tell me sincerely, What are your thoughts of the King of Sweden ? (for though his wife and children were starving, I found his chief concern at present was for this great Monarch.) I told him, that I looked upon him as one of the first Heroes of the Age. But pray, says he, do you think there is any thing 20 in the story of his. wound? and finding me surprized at the question, Nay, says he, I only propose it to you. I answered, that I thought there was no reason to doubt of it. But why in the Heel, says he, more than in any other part of the body? Because, says I, the bullet chanced to light there. 25 This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended, but he began to launch out into a long dissertation upon the affairs of the North ; and after having spent some time on them, he told me, he was in a great perplexity how to reconcile the Supplement with the English-post, and had been just now 30 examining what the other papers say upon the same subject. The Daily-courant, says he, has these words, We have advices from very good hands, that a certain Prince has some mat- ters of great importance under consideration. This is very 36 THE TATLER mysterious ; but the Post-boy leaves us more in the dark, for he tells us, That there are private intimations of measures taken by a certain Prince, which Time will bring to light. Now the Post-man, says he, who uses to be very clear, refers to the S same news in these words ; The late conduct of a certain Prince affords great matter of speculation. This certain Prince, says the Upholsterer, whom they are all so cautious of naming, I take to be upon which, though there was no body near us, he whispered something in my ear, which I did not hear, io or think worth my while to make him repeat. We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, where were three or four very odd fellows sitting together upon the Bench. These I found were all of them Politicians, who used to sun themselves in that place every day about dinner-time. i s Observing them to be curiosities in their kind, and my friend's acquaintance, I sat down among them. The chief Politician of the bench was a great asserter of Paradoxes. He told us, with a seeming concern, that by some news he had lately read from Muscovy, it appeared to him 20 that there was a storm gathering in the Black sea, which might in time do hurt to the Naval Forces of this nation. To this he added, that for his part, he could not wish to see the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be prej- udicial to our Woollen Manufacture. He then told us, that he 25 looked upon those extraordinary revolutions which had lately happened in these parts of the world, to have risen chiefly from two persons who were not much talked of; and those, says he, are Prince Menzikqff, and the Dutchess of Mirandola. He backed his assertions with so many broken hints, and such 30 a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave our selves up to his opinions. The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of true-born Englishmen, whether in case of a religious war, the Protestants would not be too strong for the THE TATLER 37 Papists? This we unanimously determined on the Protestant side. One who sate on my right hand, and, as I found by his discourse, had been in the West-Indies, assured us, that it would be a very easy matter for the Protestants to beat the Pope at Sea; and added, that whenever such a war does break out, 5 [it] 1 must turn to the good of the Leeward Islands. Upon this, one who sate at the end of the bench, and, as I afterwards found, was the Geographer of the company, said, that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to the worst, it would be impos- 10 sible to beat them out of Norway and Greenland, provided the Northern Crowns hold together, and the Czar of Muscovy stand neuter. He further told us for our comfort, that there were vast tracts of land about the Pole, inhabited neither by Protestants 15 nor Papists, and of greater extent than all the Roman Catho- lick dominions in Europe. When we had fully discussed this point, my friend the Upholsterer began to exert himself upon the present Negoti- ations of peace, in which he deposed Princes, settled the 20 bounds of kingdoms, and balanced the power of Europe, with great justice and impartiality. I at length took my leave of the company, and was going away ; but had not been gone thirty yards, before the Uphol- sterer hemmed again after me. Upon his advancing towards 25 me, with a whisper, I expected to hear some secret piece of news, which he had not thought fit to communicate to the Bench ; but instead of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him Half-a-Crpwn. In compassion to so needy a Statesman, and to dissipate the confusion I found he was in, I told him, 30 if he pleas'd, I would give him five shillings, to receive five pounds of him when the Great Turk was driven out of Con- stantinople; which he very readily accepted, but not before 1 So S ; C and T have "in." 38 THE TATLER he had laid down to me the impossibility of such an event, as the affairs df Europe now stand. This Paper I design for the particular Benefit of those wor- thy Citizens who live more in a Coffee-house than in their Shops, and whose thoughts are so taken up with the Affairs of the Allies, that they forget their Customers. N° 158. Thursday, April 13. 17 10. Faciunt nee intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant. Ter. From my own Apartment, April 12. Tom Folio is a Broker in learning, employed to get together good Editions, and stock the Libraries of great men. There is not a Sale of books begins till Tom Folio is seen at the door. 10 There is not an Auction where his name is not heard, and that too in the very nick of time, in the critical moment, before the last decisive stroke of the hammer. There is not a Subscrip- tion goes forward, in which Tom is not privy to the first rough draught of the Proposals ; nor a Catalogue printed, that doth 15 not come to him wet from the Press. He is an universal scholar, so far as the Title-page of all Authors, knows the Manuscripts in which they were discovered, the Editions through which they have passed, with the praises or censures which they have received from the several members of the learned world. He 20 has a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir, than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks out into a Panegyrick upon Harry Stephens. He thinks he gives you an account of an Author, when he tells the Subject he treats of, the Name of the Editor, and the Year in which it was printed. 25 Or if you draw him into further particulars, he cries up the goodness of the Paper, extols the diligence of the Corrector, THE TATLER 39 and is transported with the beauty of the Letter. This he looks upon to be sound Learning and substantial Criticism. As for those who talk of the Fineness of style, and the Justness of thought, or describe the Brightness of any particular pas- sages ; nay, though they write themselves in the Genius and 5 Spirit of the Author they admire, Tom looks upon them as men of superficial learning, and flashy parts. I had yesterday morning a visit from this learned Idiot, (for that is the light in which I consider every Pedant) when I dis- covered in him some little touches of the Coxcomb, which I 10 had not before observed. Being very full of the figure which he makes in the Republick of Letters, and wonderfully satisfied with his great stock of knowledge, he gave me broad intima- tions, that he did not believe in all points as his forefathers had done. He then communicated to me a thought of a certain 1 5 Author upon a passage of Virgil's account of the dead, which I made the subject of a late paper. This thought hath taken very much among men of Tom's pitch and understanding, though universally exploded by all that know how to construe Virgil, or have any relish of Antiquity. Not to trouble my 20 Reader with it, I found upon the whole, that Tom did not believe a future state of Rewards and Punishments, because sEneas, at his leaving the Empire of the dead, passed through the gate of Ivory, and not through that of Horn. Knowing that Tom had not sense enough to give up an opinion which 25 he had once received, that he might avoid wrangling, I told him, that Virgil possibly had his oversights as well as another Author. Ah! Mr. Bickerstaffe, says he, you would have another opinion of him, if you would read him in Daniel Heinsius's Edition. I have perused him my self several times in that 30 Edition, continued he ; and after the strictest and most mali- cious examination, could find but two faults in him : One of them is in the jEneid, where there are two Comma's instead of a Parenthesis ; and another in the third Georgick, where you 40 THE TATLER may find a Semicolon turned upside down. Perhaps, said I, these were not Virgil's thoughts, but those of the Transcriber. I do not design it, says Tom, as a reflection on Virgil : On the contrary, I know that all the Manuscripts reclaim against such S a Punctuation. Oh ! Mr. Bickerstaffe, says he, what would a man give to see one Simile of Virgil writ in his own hand? I asked him which was the Simile he meant ; but was answered, Any Simile in Virgil. He then told me all the secret history in the Common-wealth of learning; of modern pieces that 10 had the names of ancient Authors annexed to them; of all the books that were now writing or printing in the several parts of Europe; of many amendments which are made, and not yet published ; and a thousand other particulars, which I would not have my memory burthened with for a Vatican. 15 At length, being fully perswaded that I thoroughly admired him, and looked upon him as a prodigy of learning, he took his leave. I know several of Tom's Class who are professed admirers of Tasso without understanding a word of Italian ; and one in particular, that carries a Pastor-fldo in his pocket, zo in which I am sure he is acquainted with no other beauty but the Clearness of the character. There is another kind of Pedant, who, with all Tom Folio's impertinencies, hath greater superstructures and embellishments of Greek and Latin, and is still more insupportable than the 25 other, in the same degree as he is more learned. Of this kind very often are Editors, Commentators, Interpreters, Scholiasts, and Criticks ; and in short, all men of deep learning without common sense. These persons set a greater value on them- selves for having found out the meaning of a passage in Greek, 30 than upon the Author for having written it ; nay, will allow the passage it self not to have any beauty in it, at the same time that they would be considered as the greatest men of the age for having interpreted it. They will look with contempt upon the most beautiful Poems that have been composed by any of their THE TATLER 41 Contemporaries ; but will lock themselves up in their studies for a twelvemonth together, to correct, publish, and expound, such trifles of Antiquity as a modern Author would be con- temned for. Men of the strictest morals, severest lives, and the gravest professions, will write Volumes Upon an idle Sonnet 5 that is originally in Greek or Latin ; give Editions of the most immoral Authors, and spin out whole pages upon the various readings of a lewd expression. All that can be said in excuse for them, is, that their works sufficiently show they have no taste of their Authors ; and that what they do in this kind, 10 is out of their great learning, and not out of any levity or lasciviousness of temper. A Pedant of this nature is wonderfully well described in six lines of Boileau, with which I shall conclude his character : Un Pe"dant enyvre" de sa vaine science, 15 Tout herissi de Grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance, Et qui de mille Auteurs retenus mot pour mot, Dans sa tete entassez n'a souvent fait qu'un Sot, Croit qu'un Livre fait tout, et que sans Aristote La Raison ne voit goute, et le bon Sens radote. 20 42 THE TATLER N° 163. Thursday, April 25. 1710. Idem inficeto est inficetior rure Simul poemata attigit ; neque idem unquam JEquc est beatus, ac poema cum scribit: Tarn gaudet in se, tamque se ipse miratur. Nimirum idem omnes fallimur ; neque est quisquam Quern non in aliqua re videre Suffenum Possis Catul. de Suffeno. Will's Coffee-house, April 24. I yesterday came hither about two hours before the Com- pany generally make their appearance, with a design to read over all the Newspapers; but upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from a corner in the 5 other end of the room, where I found he had been writing something. Mr. Bickerstaffe, says he, I observe by a late paper of yours, that you and I are just of a humour ; for you must know, of all impertinencies, there is nothing which I so much hate as News. I never read a Gazette in my life ; and io never trouble my head about our Armies, whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie encamped. With- out giving me time to reply, he drew a Paper of Verses out of his pocket, telling me, that he had something which would entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire my 15 judgment upon every line, for that we had time enough before us till the Company came in. Ned Softly is a very pretty Poet, and a great admirer of easie lines. Waller is his favourite : Arid as that admirable writer has the best and worst verses of any among our English 20 Poets, Ned Softly has got all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to show his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English Reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this art; but THE TATLER 43 wonderfully pleased with the little Gothick ornaments of epi- grammatical Conceits, Turns, Points, and Quibbles, which are so frequent in the most admired of our English Poets, and practised by those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the ancients, simplicity in its [natural 1 ] 5 beauty and perfection. Finding my self unavoidably engaged in such a conver- sation, I was resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert my self as well as I could with so very odd a Fellow. You must understand, says Ned, that the Sonnet I am going 10 to read to you was written upon a Lady, who showed me some verses of her own making, and is perhaps the best Poet of our age. But you shall hear it. Upon which he begun to read as follows : To Mira, on her incomparable Poems. 1 5 I. When dress 'd in Laurel wreaths you shine, And tune your soft melodious notes, You seem a Sister of the Nine, Or Phoebus self in Petticoats, II. I fancy, when your Song you sing, 20 ( Your Song you sing with so much art) Your Pen was pluck 'd from Cupid'j Wing; For ah ! it wounds me like his Dart. Why, says I, this is a little Nosegay of conceits, a very lump of Salt : Every verse hath something in it that piques ; 25 and then the Dart in the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an Epigram (for so I think your Criticks call it) as ever entered into the thought of a Poet. Dear Mr> Bickerstaffe, says he, shaking me by the hand, every body knows you to be a judge of these things ; and to tell you truly, 30 1 So S ; C and T have " naturally." 44 THE TATLER I read over Roscommon 's translation of Horace's Art of Poetry three several times, before I sat down to write the Sonnet which I have shown you. But you shall hear it again, and pray observe every line of it, for not one of them shall pass without your approbation. When dress 1 din Laurel wreaths you shine. That is, says he, when you have your Garland on; when you are writing verses. To which I replied, I know your meaning : A Metaphor ! The same, said he, and went on : And tune your soft melodious notes. Pray observe the gliding of that verse; there is scarce a Consonant in it : I took care to make it run upon Liquids. Give me your opinion of it. Truly, said I, I think it as good as the former. I am very glad to hear you say so, says he ; but mind the next : You seem a Sister of the Nine. That is, says he, you seem a Sister of the Muses ; for if you look into ancient Authors, you will find it was their opinion, that there were Nine of them. I remember it very well, said I ; but pray proceed. Or Phoebus self in Petticoats. Phcebus, says he, was the God of Poetry. These little in- stances, Mr. Bickerstaffe, show a Gentleman's reading. Then to take off from the air of Learning, which Phcebus and the Muses have given to this first Stanza, you may observe, how it falls all of a sudden into the familiar; in Petticoats! Or Phoebus self in Petticoats. Let us now, says I, enter upon the second Stanza. I find the first line is still a continuation of the Metaphor. I fancy, when your Song you sing. THE TATLER 45 It is very right, says he ; but pray observe the turn of words in those two Lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have still a doubt upon me, whether in the second Line it should be, Your Song you sing; or, You sing your Song. You shall hear them both : 5 I fancy, when your Song you sing, ( Your Song you sing with so much art.') . OR, I fancy, when your Song you sing, ( You sing your Song with so much art.) 10 Truly, said I, the Turn is so natural either way, that you have made me almost giddy with it. Dear Sir, said he, grasp- ing me by the hand, you have a great deal of patience ; but pray what do you think of the next verse ? Your Pen was pluck 'd from Cupid's Wing. 15 Think ! says I ; I think you have made Cupid look like a little Goose. That was my meaning, says he ; I think the ridicule is well enough hit off. But we now come to the last, which sums up the whole matter. For Ah/ it wounds me like his Dart. 20 Pray how do you like that Ah ! Doth it not make a pretty figure in that place? Ah I It looks as if I felt the Dart, and cried out at being pricked with it. For Ah ! it wounds me like his Dart. My friend Dick Easy, continued he, assured me, he would 25 rather have written that Ah I than to have been the Author of the sEneid. He indeed objected, that I made Mira's Pen like a Quill in on 3 of the lines, and like a Dart in the other. But as to that Oh ! as to that, says I, it is but supposing Cupiil to be like a Porcupine, and his Quills and Darts will be 30 the same thing. He was going to embrace me for the hint ; 4 6 THE TATLER but half a dozen Criticks coming into the room, whose faces he did not like, he conveyed the Sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the ear, he would show it me again as goon as his man had written it over fair. N° 249. Saturday, November n. 17 10. Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rcrum, Tendimus. Virg. From my own Apartment, November 10. 5 I was last night visited by a friend of mine who has an inexhaustible fund of discourse, and never fails to entertain his company with a variety of thoughts and hints that are altogether new and uncommon. Whether it were in com- plaisance to my way of living, or his real opinion, he advanced 10 the following Paradox, That it required much greater talents to fill up and become a Retired life, than a life of Business. Upon this occasion he rallied very agreeably the Busie men of the age, who only valued themselves for being in motion, and passing through a series of trifling and insignificant Actions. 15 In the heat of his discourse, seeing a piece of money lying on my table, I dene (says he) any of these active persons to produce half the Adventures that this Twelvepeny-piece has been engaged in, were it possible for him to give us an account of his Life. 20 My friend's talk made so odd an impression upon my mind ; that soon after I was a-bed I fell insensibly into a most unac- countable Resverie, that had neither Moral nor Design in jt, and cannot be so properly called a Dream as a Delirium. Methoughts the Shilling that lay upon the table reared it 25 self upon it? edge, and turning the face towards me, opened THE TATLER 47 its mouth, and in a soft silver sound gave me the following account of his Life and Adventures : I was bom, says he, on the side of a mountain, near a little village of Peru, and made a voyage to England in an Ingot, under the Convoy of Sir Francis Drake. I was, soon after 5 my arrival, taken out of my Indian habit, refined, naturalized, and put into the British Mode, with the face of Queen Eliza- beth on one side, and the Arms of the Country on the other. Being thus equipped, I found in me a wonderful inclination to ramble, and visit all the parts of the new world into which 10 I was brought. The people very much favoured my natural disposition, and shifted me so fast from hand to hand, that before I was five years old, I had travelled into almost every corner of the nation. But in the beginning of my sixth year, to my unspeakable grief, I fell into the hands of a miserable 15 old fellow, who clapped me into an Iron Chest, where I found five hundred more of my own quality who lay under the same confinement. The only relief we had, was to be taken out and counted over in the fresh air every morning and evening. After an imprisonment of several years, we heard some body 20 knocking at our Chest, and breaking it open with an Hammer. This we found was the old man's heir, who, as his Father lay a dying, was so good as to come to our release : He separated us that very day. What was the fate of my companions I know not : As for my self, I was sent to the Apothecary's shop for a 25 pint of Sack. The Apothecary gave me to an Herb-woman, the Herb-woman to a Butcher, the Butcher to a Brewer, and the Brewer to his Wife, who made a present of me to a Non- conformist Preacher. After this manner I made my way merrily through the world ; for, as I told you before, we Shil- 30 lings love nothing so much as travelling. I sometimes fetched in a Shoulder of Mutton, sometimes a Play-book, and often had the satisfaction to treat a Templer at a twelve-peny 48 THE TATLER Ordinary, or carry him with three friends to Westminster- Hall. In the midst of this pleasant progress which I made from place to place, I was arrested by a superstitious old woman, 5 who shut me up in a greazy purse, in pursuance of a foolish saying, That while she kept a Queen Elizabeth's Shilling about her, she should never be without Money. I continued here a close Prisoner for many months, till at last I was exchanged for eight and forty Farthings. io I thus rambled from Pocket to Pocket till the beginning of the Civil Wars, when, to my shame be it spoken, I was employed in raising Soldiers against the King : For being of a very tempting breadth, a Serjeant made use of me to inveigle Country Fellows, and list them in the service of the 15 Parliament. As soon as he had made one man sure, his way was to oblige him to take a Shilling of a more homely figure, and then practise the same trick upon another. Thus I continued doing great mischief to the Crown, till my Officer chancing 20 one morning to walk abroad earlier than ordinary, sacrificed me to his pleasures, and made use of me to seduce a Milk- maid. This wench bent me, and gave me to her Sweetheart, applying more properly than she intended the usual form of, To my Love and from my Love. This ungenerous Gallant 25 marrying her within few days after, pawned me for a dram of Brandy, and drinking me out next day, I was beaten flat with an hammer, and again set a running. After many adventures which it would be tedious to relate, I was sent to a young Spendthrift, in company with the Will 30 of his deceased Father. The young Fellow, who I found was very extravagant, gave great demonstrations of joy at the receiving of the Will : but opening it, he found himself disin- herited and cut off from the possession of a fair Estate, by virtue of my being made a present to him. This put him into THE TATLER 49 such a passion, that after having taken me in his hand, and cursed me, he squirred me away from him as far as he could fling me. I chanced to light in an unfrequented place under a dead wall, where I lay undiscovered and useless, during the Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell. 5 About a year after the King's return, a poor Cavalier that was walking there about dinner-time fortunately cast his eye upon me, and, to the great joy of us both, carried me to a Cook's shop, where he dined upon me, and drank the King's health. When I came again into the world, I found that I 10 had been happier in my retirement than I thought, having probably by that means escaped wearing a monstrous pair of Breeches. Being now of great credit and antiquity, I was rather looked upon as a Medal than an ordinary Coin; for which reason a 15 Gamester laid hold of me, and converted me to a Counter, having got together some dozens of us for that use. We led a melancholy life in his possession, being busie at those hours wherein current coin is at rest, and partaking the fate of our Master, being in a few moments valued at a Crown, a Pound, 20 or a Sixpence, according to the situation in which the fortune of the Cards placed us. I had at length the good luck to see my Master break, by which means I was again sent abroad under my primitive denomination of a Shilling. I shall pass over many other accidents of less moment, and 25 hasten to that fatal Catastrophe when I fell into the hands of an Artist who conveyed me under ground, and with an unmerciful pair of Sheers cut off my Titles, clipped my Brims, retrenched my Shape, rubbed me to my inmost Ring, and, in short, so spoiled and pillaged me, that he did not leave me 30 worth a Groat. You may think what a confusion I was in to see my self thus curtailed and disfigured. I should have been ashamed to have shown my head, had not all my old acquaint- ance been reduced to the same shameful figure, excepting some 50 THE TATLER few that were punched through the belly. In the midst of this general calamity, when every body thought our misfortune irretrievable, and our case desperate, we were thrown into the Furnace together, and (as it often happens with cities rising S out of a fire) appeared with greater beauty and lustre than we could ever boast of before. What has happened to me since this change of Sex which you now see, I shall take some other opportunity to relate. In the mean time I shall only repeat two Adventures, as being very extraordinary, and neither of 10 them having ever happened to me above once in my Life. The first was, my being in a Poet's Pocket, who was so taken with the brightness and novelty of my appearance, that it gave occasion to the finest Burlesque Poem in the British Language, entituled from me, The splendid Shilling. The second Adven- 15 ture, which I must not omit, happened to me in the year 1703, when I was given away in charity to a blind man ; but indeed this was by a mistake, the person who gave me having heedlessly thrown me into the Hat among a penyworth of Farthings. N° 254. Thursday, November 23. 17 10. Splendide mendax. Hor. From my own Apartment, November 22. There are no Books which I more delight in than in Travels, 20 especially those that describe remote Countries, and give the writer an opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being examined or contradicted. Among all the Authors of this kind, our renowned Country-man Sir John Mandeville has distinguished himself by the Copiousness 25 of his Invention, and Greatness of his Genius. The second to Sir John I take to have been Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, THE TATLER 51 a person of infinite adventure, and unbounded imagination. One reads the Voyages of these two Great Wits with as much astonishment as the Travels, of Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red-Cross Knight in Spenser. All is Enchanted Ground, and Fairy Land. 5 I have got into my hands by great chance several Manu- scripts of these two eminent Authors, which are filled with greater wonders than any of those they have communicated to the publick; and indeed, were they not so well attested, would appear altogether improbable. I am apt to think, the 10 ingenious Authors did not publish them with the rest of their works, lest they should pass for fictions and fables : A caution not unnecessary, when the reputation of their veracity was not yet established in the world. But as this reason has now no further weight, I shall make the publick a present of these 15 curious pieces at such times as I shall find my self unprovided with other subjects. The present Paper I intend to fill with an extract of Sir John's Journal, in which that learned and worthy Knight gives an account of the freezing and thawing of several short 20 Speeches which he made in the Territories of Nova Zembla. I need not inform my Reader, that the Author of Hudibras alludes to this strange Quality in that cold Climate, when, speaking of abstracted Notions cloathed in a visible Shape, he adds that apt Simile, 25 Like words congeaVd in Northern Air. Not to keep my Reader any longer in suspence, the relation put into modern Language is as follows : We were separated by a storm in the Latitude of 73, inso- much that only the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and a 30 French vessel, got safe into a creek of Nova Zembla. We landed in order to refit our vessels, and store our selves with provisions. The Crew of each vessel made themselves a Cabin 5 2 THE TATLER of Turf and Wood, at some distance from each other, to fence themselves against the Inclemencies of the weather, which was severe beyond imagination. We soon observed, that in talking to one another we lost several of our words, and could not 5 hear one another at above two yards distance, and that too when we sate very near the fire. After much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air before they could reach the ears of the person to whom they were spoken. I was soon confirmed in this conjecture, when, upon the increase of 10 the cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; for every man was sensible, as we afterwards found, that he spoke as well as ever ; but the sounds no sooner took air, than they were condensed and lost. It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding and gaping at one another, every man talk- 15 ing, and no man heard. One might observe a Seaman, that could hail a ship at a league distance, beckoning with his hands, straining his lungs, and tearing his throat, but all in vain. Nee vox, nee verba, sequuntur. io We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length, upon a turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our Cabin was immediately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often mixed with a 25 gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letter S, that occurs so frequently in the English Tongue. I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear ; for those being of a soft and gentle substance, immediately liquefied in the warm wind that blew, across our Cabin. These were soon followed by syllables 30 and short words, and at length by entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were more or less congealed ;' so that we now heard every thing that had been spoken during the whole three weeks that we had been silent, if I may use that expression. It was now very early in the morning, and yet THE TATLER 53 to my surprize, I heard some body say, Sir John, it is midnight, and time for the ship's Crew to go to bed. This I knew to be the Pilot's voice, and upon recollecting my self, I concluded that he had spoken these words to me some days before, though I could not hear them before the present thaw. My 5 Reader will easily imagine how the whole Crew was amazed, to hear every man talking, and see no man opening his mouth. In the midst of this great surprize we were all in, we heard a volley of oaths and curses, lasting for a long while, and uttered in a very hoarse voice, which I knew belonged to the Boat- 10 swain, who was a very cholerick fellow, and had taken his opportunity of cursing and swearing at me when he thought I could not hear him ; for I had several times given him the Strappado on that account, as I did not fail to repeat it for these his pious soliloquies when I got him on shipboard. 15 I must not omit the names of several beauties in Wapping, which were heard every now and then, in the midst of a long sigh that accompanied them; as, Dear Kate! Pretty Mrs. Peggy ! When shall I see my Sue again? this betrayed several amours which had been concealed till that time, and furnished 20 us with a great deal of mirth in our return to England. When this confusion of voices was pretty well over, though I was afraid to offer at speaking, as fearing I should not be heard, I proposed a visit to the Dutch Cabin, which lay about a mile further up into the country. My Crew were extremely 25 rejoiced to find they had again recovered their hearing, though every man uttered his voice with the same apprehensions that I had done : Et timide verba intermissa retentat. At about half a mile's distance from our Cabin, we heard 30 the grqanings of a Bear, which at first startled us ; but upon enquiry we were informed by some of our company, that he was dead, and now lay in Salt, having been killed upon that §4 THE TATtER very spot about a fortnight before, in the time of the frost. Not far from the same place we were likewise entertained with some posthumous snarls and barkings of a Fox. We at length arrived at the little Dutch Settlement, and 5 upon entering the room, found it filled with sighs that smelt of Brandy, and several other unsavoury sounds that were altogether inarticulate. My Valet, who was an Irishman, fell into so great a rage at what he heard, that he drew his Sword; but not knowing where to lay the blame, he put it 10 up again. We were stunned with these confused noises, but did not hear a single word till about half an hour after; which I ascribed to the harsh and obdurate sounds of that Language, which wanted more time than ours to melt and become audible. 15 After having here met with a very hearty welcome, we went to the French Cabin, who, to make amends for their three weeks Silence, were talking and disputing with greater rapidity and confusion than ever I heard in an Assembly even of that Nation. Their Language, as I found, upon the first giving of 20 the weather, fell asunder and dissolved. I was here convinced of an Error into which I had before fallen ; for I fancied, that for the freezing of the Sound, it was necessary for it to be [wrapped] 1 up, and, as it were, preserved in breath; but I found my mistake, when I heard the sound of a Kit playing Z S M 2 [minuet] 8 over our heads. I asked the occasion of it ; upon which one of the company told me, that it would play there above a week longer if the thaw continued ; for, says he, finding our selves bereft of speech, we prevailed upon one of the company, who had this Musical Instrument about him, to 30 play to us from morning to night ; all which time we employed in dancing, in order to dissipate our Chagrin, et tuer k temps. 1 So S and C ; T has "wapped." 2 So S and C j T has a blank space. 8 So S; C has " Minute," T has "minuit." THE TATLER 55 Here Sir John gives very good Philosophical Reasons, why the Kit could be heard during the frost ; but as they are something Prolix, I pass over them in silence, and shall only observe, that the honourable Author seems, by his Quotations, to have been well versed in the ancient Poets, which perhaps raised his fancy above the ordinary pitch of Historians, and very much contributed to the embellishment of his writings. THE SPECTATOR. N° i. Thursday, March i. 1711. Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat. Hor. I have observed, that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or cholerick disposition, married or a batchelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that con- 5 duce very much to the right understanding of an Author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this Paper and my next as Prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several Persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief 10 trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do my self the justice to open the work with my own History. I was born to a small Hereditary Estate, which, according to the tradition of the Village where it lies, was bounded by 15 the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror 's time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from Father to Son whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition of a single field or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that when my Mother was 20 gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she was brought to bed of a Judge : Whether this might pro- ceed from a Law-suit which was then depending in the family, or my Father's being a Justice of the Peace, I cannot determine ; 56 THE SPECTATOR 57 for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the inter- pretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my Mother's 5 dream : For, as she has often told me, I threw away my Rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my Coral till they had taken away the Bells from it. As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find, that during 10 my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my Schoolmaster, who used to say, that my parts were solid, and would wear well. I had not been long at the University, before I distinguished my self by a most profound Silence ; for during the space of eight years, 15 excepting in the publick exercises of the College, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words ; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in this Learned body, I applied my self with so much diligence to my studies, that there are very few 20 celebrated Books, either in the learned or modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with. Upon the death of my Father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the University, with the character of an odd unaccountable Fellow, that had a great 25 deal of Learning, if I would but shew it. An insatiable thirst after Knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe in which there was any thing new or strange to be seen ; nay to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men concerning the Antiquities of 30 Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a Pyramid : and as soon as I had set my self right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction. 58 THE SPECTATOR I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am fre- quently seen in most publick places, though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know me ; of whom my next Paper shall give a more particular account. 5 There is no place of general resort, wherein I do not often make my appearance ; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of Politicians at Will's, and listning with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoak a pipe at Child's, and whilst I io seem attentive to nothing but the Post-Man, over-hear the con- versation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's Coffee-house, and sometimes join the little Com- mittee of Politicks in the inner-room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the 15 Grecian, the Cocoa-Tree, and in the Theatres both of Drury- Lane and the Hay-Market. I have been taken for a Merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of Stock-jobbers at Jonathan's : In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with ii them, though I never open my lips but in my own Club. Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind, than as one of the species ; by which means I have made my self a speculative Statesman, Soldier, Merchant and Artizan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am 25 very well versed in the theory of a Husband or a Father, and can discern the errors in the oeconomy, business and diver- sion of others, better than those who are engaged in them ; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, 30 and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare my self by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a Looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper. THE SPECTATOR 59 I have given the reader just so much of my History and Character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I 5 consider how much I have seen, read and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity ; and since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print my self out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, 10 that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a Silent man. For this reason therefore, I shall publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morn- ing, for the benefit of my contemporaries ; and if I can any , way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country 1 5 in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain. There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper ; and which, for several important reasons, I 20 must keep to my self, at least for some time : I mean, an account of my Name, my Age, and my Lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in any thing that is reasonable ; but as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot 25 yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the publick. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in publick places to several salutes and civilities, which have been always very dis- agreeable to me ; for the greatest pain I can suffer, is the being 30 talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason likewise, that I keep my Complexion and Dress as very great secrets ; though it is not impossible, but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken, 60 THE SPECTATOR After having been thus particular upon my self, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those Gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a Club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me, may direct their Letters to the Spectator, at Mr. Buckley's in Little Britain. For I must further acquaint the Reader, that though our Club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a Com- mitee to sit every night, for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the advancement of the publick weal. N° 2. Friday, March 2. [171 1.] A st alii sex Et plures uno conclamant ore. Juv. The first of our Society is a Gentleman of Worcestershire, of antient descent, a Baronet, his name Sir Roger de Coverly. 15 His Great Grand-father was inventor of that famous country- dance which is called after him. All who know that Shire, are very well acquainted with the Parts and Merits of Sir Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contra- 20 dictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humour creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy ; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know 25 him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho- Square. It is said, he keeps himself a Bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful Widow of the next County to him. THE SPECTATOR 6 1 Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a Duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a publick Coffee-house for calling him Youngster. But being ill used by the above-mentioned 5 Widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He con- tinues to wear a Coat and Doublet of the same Cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in.his merry humours, 10 he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. 'Tis said Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot this cruel Beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with Beggars and Gypsies : But this is looked upon by his friends rather as mat- 15 ter of raillery than truth. He is now in his fifty sixth year, cheerful, gay and hearty ; keeps a good house both in town and country ; a great lover of mankind ; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed : His Tenants grow rich, his Servants look satisfied, 20 all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company : When he comes into a house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a Justice of the Quorum ; that he fills the Chair at a Quarter-Session 25 with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the Game-act. The Gentleman next in esteem and authority among us, is another Bachelor, who is a member of the Inner- Temple ; a man of great Probity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has 3c chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humoursome Father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those 62 THE SPECTATOR of the Stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better under- stood by him than Littleton or Coke. The Father sends up every Post Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, and Tenures, in the neighbourhood; all which Questions j he agrees with an Attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the ro Reports of our own Courts. No one ever took him for a Fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of Wit. This turn makes him at once both dis- interested and agreeable : As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. 15 His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent Critick, 20 and the time of the Play is his hour of business ; exactly at five he passes through New- Inn, crosses through Russel- Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the Play begins ; he has his Shooes rubbed and his Periwig powdered at the Barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of the Audience 25 when he is at Play, for the Actors have an ambition to please him. The person of next consideration, is Sir Andrew Freeport, a Merchant of great eminence in the City of London : A person of indefatigable Industry, strong Reason, and great 30 Experience. His notions of Trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) ■ he calls the Sea the British Common. He is acquainted with Commerce jn all its parts, and will tell you it is a stupid and THE SPECTATOR 63 barbarous way to extend Dominion by arms ; for true Power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if This part of our Trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation ; and if Another, from another. I have heard him prove, that diligence makes more lasting acqui- 5 sitions than valour, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is, "A peny saved is a peny got." A general Trader of good sense, is pleasanter company than a general Scholar; and Sir Andrew having a 10 natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that Wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though at the same 15 time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner. Next to Sir Andrew in the Club-room sits Captain Sentry, a Gentleman of great courage, and understanding, but invin- cible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but 20 are very awkard at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a Captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges ; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted 25 a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a Courtier as well as a Soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose I never 30 heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the 64 THE SPECTATOR same end with himself, the favour of a Commander. He will however in his way of talk excuse Generals, for not disposing according to men's desert, or enquiring into it : For, says he, that Great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to S break through to come at me, as I have to come at him : Therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his Patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He 10 says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attack- ing when it is your duty. With this candor does the Gentle- man speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part, of his life has 15 furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never over- bearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him ; nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him. 20 But that our Society may not appear a set of Humourists unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will. Honeycomb, a Gentleman who according to his years should be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his person, and always 25 had a very easie fortune, time has made but very little impres- sion, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers 30 habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods ; whose frailty was covered by THE SPECTATOR 65 such a sort of petticoat, and whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year : In a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a Minister said upon such and such an occasion, he 5 will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at Court, such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his Troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan from some celebrated Beauty, Mother 10 of the present Lord such-a-one. If you speak of a young Commoner that said a lively thing in the house, he starts up, " He has good blood in his veins, Tom Mirabel! begot him, " the rogue cheated me in that affair, that young fellow's "Mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever 15 made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but my self, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well-bred fine Gentleman. To conclude 20 his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company ; for he visits us but sel- dom, but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoy- 25 ment of himself. He is a Clergyman, a very philosophick man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him 30 to : He is therefore among Divines what a Chamber-counsellor is among Lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integ- rity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks 66 THE SPECTATOR upon ; but we are so far gone in years, that he observes when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topick, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions.* N° 5. Tuesday, March 6. [17 n.] Spectatum admissi risum teneatis? Hor. An Opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decorations, as its only design is to gratifie the senses, and keep up an indolent attention in the audience. Common 10 sense however requires, that there should be nothing in the Scenes and Machines which may appear childish and absurd. How would the Wits of King Charles's time have laughed to have seen Nicolini exposed to a tempest in robes of Ermin, and sailing in an open boat upon a sea of Paste-board? 15 What a field of raillery would they have been let into, had they been entertained with painted dragons spitting wild-fire, enchanted chariots drawn by Flanders mares, and real Cas- cades in artificial land-skips? A little skill in criticism would inform us, that shadows and realities ought not to be mixed 20 together in the same piece; and that the scenes which are designed as the representations of nature, should be filled with resemblances, and not with the things themselves. If one would represent a wide champian country filled with [* " Though this paper in former Editions is not marked with any Letter of the word CLIO, by Which Mr. Addison distinguished his performances', it was thought necessary to insert it, as containing characters of the several persons mentioned in the whole course of this work." — Tickell.] THE SPECTATOR 67 herds and flocks, it would be ridiculous to draw the country only upon the scenes, and to crowd several parts of the stage with sheep and oxen. This is joining together inconsistencies, and making the decoration partly real and partly imaginary. I would recommend what I have here said, to the Directors, 5 as well as to the Admirers of our modern Opera. As I was walking in the streets about a fortnight ago, I saw an ordinary Fellow carrying a Cage full of little birds upon his shoulder ; and, as I was wondering with my self what use he would put them to, he was met very luckily by an acquaint- 10 ance, who had the same curiosity. Upon his asking him what he had upon his shoulder, he told him, that he had been buy- ing Sparrows for the Opera. Sparrows for the Opera, says his friend, licking his lips, what are they to be roasted ? No, no, says the other, they are to enter towards the end of the first 15 Act, and to fly about the stage. This strange dialogue awakened my curiosity so far, that I immediately bought the Opera, by which means I perceived the Sparrows were to act the part of singing birds in a delight- ful grove ; though upon a nearer enquiry I found the Sparrows 20 put the same trick upon the audience, that Sir Martin Mar-all practised upon his Mistress ; for though they flew in sight, the musick proceeded from a consort of Flageolets and Bird-calls which were planted behind the scenes. At the same time I made this discovery, I found by the discourse of the Actors, 25 that there were great designs on foot for the improvement of the Opera ; that it had been proposed to break down a part of the wall, and to surprize the audience with a party of an hundred horse, and that there was actually a project of bring- ing the New-River into the house, to be employed in jetteaus 3° and water-works. This project, as I have since heard, is post-poned 'till the summer-season ; when it is thought the coolness that proceeds from fountains and cascades will be more acceptable and refreshing to people of Quality. In the 68 THE SPECTATOR mean time, to find out a more agreeable entertainment for the winter-season, the Opera of Rinaldo is filled with thunder and lightning, illuminations and fireworks ; which the audience may look upon without catching cold, and indeed without much S danger of being burnt; for there are several Engines filled with water, and ready to play at a minute's warning, in case any such accident should happen. However, as I have a very great friendship for the owner of this Theatre, I hope that he has been wise enough to insure his house before he would let 10 this Opera be acted in it. It is no wonder, that those scenes should be very surprizing, which were contrived by two Poets of different nations, and raised by two Magicians of different sexes. Armida (as we are told in the argument) was an Amazonian Enchantress, 15 and poor Signior Cassani (as we learn from the Persons rep- resented) a Christian Conjurer (Mago Christiana.) I must confess I am very much puzzled to find how an Amazon should be versed in the Black art, or how a good Chris- tian, for such is the part of the Magician, should deal with 20 the Devil. To consider the Poets after the Conjurers, I shall give you a taste of the Italian from the first lines of his preface. Eccoti, benigno Lettore, un Parto di poche Sere, che se ben nato di Notte, non e perb aborto di Tenebre, ma si fara conoscere 25 Figliolo d' 'Apollo con qualche Raggio di Parnasse. Behold, gentle reader, the birth of a few evenings, which though it be the offspring of the night, is not the abortive of darkness, but will make it self known to be the Son 0/" Apollo, with a certain ray of Parnassus. He afterwards proceeds to call Minheer 30 Hendel the Orpheus of our age, and to acquaint us, in the same sublimity of stile, that he composed this Opera in a fort- night. Such are the Wits, to whose tastes we so ambitiously conform our selves. The truth of it is, the finest writers among the modern Italians express themselves in such a florid THE SPECTATOR 69 form of words, and such tedious circumlocutions, as are used by none but Pedants in our own country; and at the same time fill their writings with such poor imaginations and con- ceits, as our youths are ashamed of before they have been two years at the University. Some may be apt to think that it is 5 the difference of genius which produces this difference in the works of the two nations ; but to shew there is nothing in this, if we look into the writings of the old Italians, such as Cicero and Virgil, we shall find that the English writers, in their way of thinking and expressing themselves, resemble those Authors 10 much more than the modern Italians pretend to do. And as for the Poet himself, from whom the dreams of this Opera are taken, I must entirely agree with Monsieur Boileau, that one verse in Virgil is worth all the Clinquant or Tinsel of Tasso. But to return to the Sparrows; there have been so many 15 flights of them let loose in this Opera, that it is feared the house will never get rid of them ; and that in other Plays they may make their entrance in very wrong and improper Scenes, so as to be seen flying in a Lady's bed-chamber, or perching upon a King's throne ; besides the inconveniences 20 which the heads of the audience may sometimes suffer from them. I am credibly informed, that there was once a design of casting into an Opera the story of Whittington and his Cat, and that in order to it, there had been got together a great quantity of Mice; but Mr. Rich, the Proprietor of the Play- 25 house, very prudently considered that it would be impossible for the Cat to kill them all, and that consequently the Princes of the stage might be as much infested with Mice, as the Prince of the Island was before the Cat's arrival upon it ; for which reason he would not permit it to be acted in his house. 3a And indeed I cannot blame him : for, as he said very well upon that occasion, I do not hear that any of the performers in our Opera pretend to equal the famous Pied Piper, who made all the Mice of a great town in Germany follow his 70 THE SPECTATOR musick, and by that means cleared the place of those little noxious animals. Before I dismiss this paper, I must inform my reader, that I hear there is a treaty on foot with London and Wise (who will be appointed gardeners of the Play-house) to furnish the Opera of Rinaldo and Armida with an orange-grove ; and that the next time it is acted, the singing birds will be per- sonated by Tom-tits : The Undertakers being resolved to spare neither pains nor money for the gratification of the audience. N° 7. Thursday, March- 8. [1711.] Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, Sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides ? Hor. Going yesterday to dine with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon asking him the occasion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a strange dream the night before, which they were afraid 15 portended some misfortune to themselves or to their children. At her coming into the room I observed a settled melancholy in her countenance, which I should have been troubled for, had I not heard from whence it proceeded. We were no sooner sate down but, after having looked upon me a little while, My dear, 20 (says she, turning to her husband) you may now see the stranger that was in the candle last night. Soon after this, as they began to talk of family affairs, a little boy at the lower end of the table told her, that he was to go into join-hand on Thursday. Thursday? (says she) no child if it please God, you shall not 25 begin upon Childermas-day : tell your writing-master that Friday will be soon enough. I was reflecting with my self on the odd- ness of her fancy, and wondering that any body would estab- lish it as a rule to lose a day in every week. In the midst of THE SPECTATOR 71 these my musings, she desired me to reach her a little salt upon the point of my Knife, which I did in such a trepidation and hurry of obedience, that I let it drop by the way ; at which she immediately startled, and said it fell towards her. Upon this I looked very blank ; and, observing the concern of the 5 whole table, began to consider my self, with some confusion, as a person that had brought a disaster upon the family. The Lady however recovering her self, after a little space, said to her husband, with a sigh, My Dear, Misfortunes never come single. My friend, I found, acted but an under-part at his 1° table, and being a man of more good-nature than understand- ing, thinks himself obliged to fall in with all the passions and humours of his Yoke-fellow : Do not you remember, Child, (says she) that the Pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our care- less wench spilt the salt upon the table 1 Yes, (says he) My 1 5 Dear, and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza. The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. I dispatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual taciturnity ; when, to my utter con- fusion, the Lady seeing me quitting my Knife and Fork, and 20 laying them across one another upon my plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that figure, and place them side by side. What the absurdity was which I had committed I did not know, but I suppose there was some traditionary superstition in it ; and therefore, in obedience to 25 the Lady of the house, I disposed of my Knife and Fork in two parallel lines, which is the figure I shall always lay them in for the future, though I do not know any reason for it. It is not difficult for a man to see that a person has con- ceived an aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, 30 by the Lady's looks, that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate aspect. For which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound 72 THE SPECTATOR contemplation of the evils that attend these superstitious fol- lies of mankind ; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions, and additional sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for 5 it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents, as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a Star spoil a night's rest ; and have seen a man in love grow pale and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a Merry-thought. A Screech-owl at midnight 10 has alarmed a family more than a band of Robbers ; nay, the voice of a Cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a Lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with Omens and Prognosticks. A rusty nail, or a crooked pin, shoot up 15 into prodigies. I remember I was once in a mixt assembly, that was full of noise and mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panick terror into several who were present, insomuch 20 that one or two of the Ladies were going to leave the room ; but a friend of mine taking notice that one of our female com- panions was big with child, affirmed there were fourteen in the room, and that, instead of portending one of the company should die, it plainly foretold one of them should be born. 25 Had not my friend found this expedient to break the Omen, I question not but half the women in the company would have fallen sick that very night. An old maid, that is troubled with the Vapours, produces infinite disturbances of this kind among her friends and neigh- 30 ' bours. I know a maiden Aunt of a great family, who is one of these antiquated Sibyls, that forebodes and prophesies from one end of the year to the other. She is always seeing Appa- ritions, and hearing Death-watches; and was the other day almost frighted out of her wits by the great house-dog, that THE SPECTATOR 73 howled in the stable at a time when she lay ill of the tooth-ach. Such an extravagant cast of mind engages multitudes of people, not only in impertinent terrors, but in supernumerary duties of life ; and arises from that fear and ignorance which are nat- ural to the Soul of man. The horror with which we entertain 5 the thoughts of death (or indeed of any future evil) and the uncertainty of its approach, fill a melancholy mind with innu- merable apprehensions and suspicions, and consequently dis- pose it to the observation of such groundless Prodigies and Predictions. For as it is the chief concern of wise-men to 10 retrench the evils of life by the reasonings of Philosophy ; it is the employment of fools to multiply them by the sentiments of Superstition. For my own part, I should be very much troubled were I endowed with this divining quality, though it should inform 15 me truly of every thing that can befall me. I would not antici- pate the relish of any happiness, nor feel the weight of any misery, before it actually arrives. I know but one way of fortifying my Soul against these gloomy presages and terrors of mind, and that is, by securing 20 to my self the friendship and protection of that Being who disposes of events, and governs futurity. He sees, at one view, the whole thread of my Existence, not only that part of it which I have already passed through, but that which runs forward into all the depths of Eternity. When I lay me down 25 to sleep, I recommend my self to his care ; when I awake, I give my self up to his direction. Amidst all the evils that threaten me, I will look up to him for help, and question not but he will either avert them, or turn them to my advantage. Though I know neither the time nor the manner of the death 30 I am to die, I am not at all solicitous about it; because I am sure that he knows them both, and that he will not fail to comfort and support me under them. 74 THE SPECTATOR N° 10. Monday, March 12. [1711.] Non aliter quant qui adverse vix flumine lembum Remigiis subigit: si brachia forte remisit, Atque ilium in praceps prono rapit alveus amni. Virg. It is with much satisfaction that I hear this great city inquiring day by day after these my papers, and receiving my morning Lectures with a becoming seriousness and attention. My Publisher tells me, that there are already three thousand 3 of them distributed every day: So that if I allow twenty readers to every paper, which I look upon as a modest com- putation, I may reckon about threescore thousand Disciples in London and Westminster, who I hope will take care to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of their 10 ignorant and unattentive brethren. Since I have raised to my self so great an audience, I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agreeable, and their diversion useful. For which reasons I shall endeavour to enliven Morality with Wit, and to temper Wit with Morality, that my readers may, if 15 possible, both ways find their account in the Speculation of the day. And to the end that their virtue and discretion may not be short transient intermitting starts of thoughts, I have resolved to refresh their memories from day to day, till I have recovered them out of that desperate state of Vice and 20 Folly into which the age is fallen. The mind that lies fallow but a single day, sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous culture. It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among men ; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, 25 that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-tables and in Coffee-houses. I would therefore in a very particular manner recommend these 'my Speculations to all well-regulated families, that set THE SPECTATOR 75 apart an hour in every morning for Tea and Bread and Butter ; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the Tea equipage. SIR Francis Bacon observes, that a well-written book, com-- 5 pared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses's Serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the ^Egyptians. I shall not be so vain as to think, that where the Spectator appears, the other publick prints will vanish; But shall leave it to my reader's consideration, whether, Is it 10 not much better to be let into the knowledge of ones self, than to hear what passes in Muscovy or Poland; and to amuse our selves with such writings as tend to the wearing out of igno- rance, passion, and prejudice, than such as naturally conduce to inflame hatreds, and make enmities irreconcileable ? 1 5 In the next place, I would recommend this paper to the daily perusal of those Gentlemen whom I cannot but consider as my good brothers and allies, I mean the fraternity of Spec- tators, who live in the world without having any thing to do in it ; and either by the affluence of their fortunes, or laziness 20 of their dispositions, have no other business with the rest of mankind, but to look upon them. Under this Class of men are comprehended all contemplative Tradesmen, titular Phy- sicians, Fellows of the Royal-society, Templers that are not given to be contentious, and Statesmen that are out of busi- 25 ness ; in short, every one that considers the world as a The- atre, and desires to form a right judgement of those who are the actors on it. There is another set of men that I must likewise lay a claim to, whom I have lately called the Blanks of Society, as being 30 altogether unfurnished with Ideas, till the business and con- versation of the day has supplied them. I have often con- sidered these poor souls with an eye of great commiseration, when I have heard them asking the first man they have met 76 THE SPECTATOR with, whether there was any news stirring? and by that means gathering together materials for thinking. These needy per- sons do not know what to talk of, till about twelve a clock in the morning ; for by that time they are pretty good judges of S the weather, know which way the wind sits, and whether the Dutch Mail be come in. As they lie at the mercy of the first man they meet, and are grave or impertinent all the day long, according to the notions which they have imbibed in the morn- ing, I would earnestly entreat them not to stir out of their 10 chambers till they have read this paper, and do promise them that I will daily instil into them such sound and wholesome sentiments, as shall have a good effect on their conversation for the ensuing twelve hours. But there are none to whom this paper will be more useful, 1 5 than to the Female world. I have often thought there has not been sufficient pains taken in finding out proper employments and diversions for the Fair ones. Their amusements seem contrived for them, rather as they are Women, than as they are Reasonable creatures ; and are more adapted to the Sex 20 than to the Species. The Toilet is their great scene of busi- ness, and the right adjusting of their hair the principal employ- ment of their lives. The sorting of a suit of Ribons is reckoned a very good morning's work ; and if they make an excursion to a Mercer's or a Toy-shop, so great a fatigue makes them 25 unfit for any thing else all the day after. Their more serious occupations are sewing and embroidery, and their greatest drudgery the preparation of Jellies and Sweet-meats. This, I say, is the state of ordinary women ; though I know there are multitudes of those of a more elevated life and conversation, 30 that move in an exalted sphere of Knowledge and Virtue, that join all the beauties of the mind to the ornaments of dress, and inspire a kind of awe and respect, as well as love, into their Male-beholders. I hope to encrease the number of these by publishing this daily paper, which I shall always endeavour to THE SPECTATOR 77 make an innocent if not an improving entertainment, and by that means at least divert the minds of my Female readers from greater trifles. At the same time, as I would fain give some finishing touches to those which are already the most beautiful pieces in human nature, I shall endeavour to point out all those 5 Imperfections that are the blemishes, as well as those Virtues which are the embellishments of the Sex. In the mean while I hope these my gentle readers, who have so much time on their hands, will not grudge throwing away a quarter of an hour in a day on this paper, since they may do it without 10 any hindrance to business. I know several of my friends and well-wishers are in great pain for me, lest I should not be able to keep up the spirit of a paper which I oblige my self to furnish every day : But to make them easie in this particular, I will promise them faith- 15 fully to give it over as soon as I grow dull. This I know will be matter of great raillery to the small Wits; who will fre- quently put me in mind of my promise, desire me to keep my word, assure me that it is high time to give over, with many other little pleasantries of the like nature, which men of a 20 little smart Genius cannot forbear throwing out against their best friends, when they have such a handle given them of being witty. But let them remember that I do hereby enter my caveat against this piece of raillery. 78 THE SPECTATOR N° 26. Friday, March 30. [17 11.] Pallida mors tequo puis at pede pauper um tabernas Regumque turres, beate Sexti. Vita summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam : Jam te premet nox, fabulatque manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia Hor. When I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by my self in Westminster Abby; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lye in it, are 5 apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the Church-yard, the Cloysters, and the Church, amusing my self with the Tombstones and Inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most 10 of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another : The whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these Registers of existence, whether of Brass 1 5 or Marble, as a kind of Satyr upon the departed persons ; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battels of Heroic Poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that 20 they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head. T\o.vk6v t« M4Sovt& re 6cp re. Horn. Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. Virg. The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ by the 25 Path of an Arrow, which is immediately closed up and lost. THE SPECTATOR 79 Upon my going into the Church, I entertained my self with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of an humane body. Upon this, I 5 began to consider with my self what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient Cathedral ; how Men and Women, Friends and Enemies, Priests and Soldiers, Monks and Prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass ; 10 how beauty, strength, and youth, with old-age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed this great Magazine of Mortality, as it were, in the lump ; I examined it more particularly by the 15 accounts which I found on several of the Monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabrick. Some of them were covered with such extravagant Epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed 20 upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, .and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were Poets who had no Monuments, and Monuments which had no Poets. I observed 25 indeed that the present War had filled the Church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the Ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern 30 Epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a Foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a Nation, from the 80 THE SPECTATOR turn of their publick monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius, before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel's mon- ument has very often given me great offence : Instead of the 5 brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his Tomb by the figure of a Beau, dressed in a long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon Velvet Cushions under a Canopy of State. The Inscription is answerable to the Monument ; for 10 instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Butch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew an infinitely greater taste of 15 antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their Admirals, which have been erected at the publick expence, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with zo beautiful festoons of sea-weed, shells, and coral. But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English Kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark 25 and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imagina- tions ; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy ; and can therefore take a view of Nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means 30 I can improve my self with those objects, which others con- sider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the Great, every emotion of envy dies in me ; when I read the epitaphs of the Beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with the. grief of Parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts THE SPECTATOR 8 1 with compassion ; when I see the tomb of the Parents them- selves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow : When I see Kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together. N° 34. Monday, April 9. [1711.] parcit Cognatis maculis similis fera Juv. The Club of which I am a Member, is very luckily com- posed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind : By this means I am furnished with the greatest 1 5 variety of hints and materials, and know every thing that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My readers too have the satisfaction to find, that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their representative in this Club, 20 and that there is always some body present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges. I last night sate very late in company with this select body 25 of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my Speculations, as also with 82 THE SPECTATOR the various success, which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will. Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, That there were some Ladies (but for your comfort, says Will, they are not those of the most wit) 5 that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the Opera and the Puppet-show ; That some of them were likewise very much surprized, that I should think such serious points as the Dress and Equipage of persons of Quality, proper subjects for raillery. io He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short and told him, That the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them : And further added, That the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring iS my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of par- ticular Intrigues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir Andrew, if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon Aldermen and Citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury 20 of Courts, your paper must needs be of general use. Upon this my friend the Templer told Sir Andrew, That he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner ; that the City had always been the province for Satyr ; and that the Wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during 25 his whole reign. He then shewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and 'the best writers of every age, that the follies of the Stage and Court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. But after all, says he, I think your raillery 30 has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court ; and I do not believe you can shew me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular. My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said noth- ing all this while, began his speech with a Pish ! and told us, THE SPECTATOR 83 That he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. Let our good friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it : I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator, applying himself to me, to take care how you meddle with Country Squires : They are the ornaments of the English 5 nation ; men of good heads and sound bodies ! and let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you, that you mention Fox-hunters with so little respect. Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not 10 touching upon the Army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that point. By this time I found every subject of my Speculations was taken away from me, by one or other of the Club ; and began to think my self in the condition of the good man that had 15 one wife who took a dislike to his grey hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked. While I was thus musing with my self, my worthy friend the Clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at the Club 20 that ,night, undertook my cause. He told us, that he won- dered any order of persons should think themselves too considerable to be advised : That it was not Quality, but Innocence, which exempted men from reproof: That Vice and Folly ought to be attacked where-ever they could be 75 met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of life. He further added, That my Paper would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure turned into ridicule, by the meanness of 30 their conditions and circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the publick, by reprehending those Vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the Law, and too fantastical for the 84 THE SPECTATOR cognizance of the Pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my undertaking with chearfulness, and assured me, that who- ever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose praises do honour to the persons on whom S they are bestowed. The whole Club pays a particular deference to the discourse of this Gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid ingenious manner with which he delivers himself, as by the strength of Argument and force of Reason which 10 he makes use of. Will. Honeycomb immediately agreed, that what he had said was right ; and that for his part, he would not insist upon the quarter which he had demanded for the Ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the City with the same frank- ness. The Templer would not stand out ; and was followed i s by Sir Roger and the Captain : who all agreed that I should be at liberty to carry the war into what quarter I pleased ; pro- vided I continued to combat with criminals in a body, and to assault the vice without hurting the person. This debate, which was held for the good of mankind, put 20 me in mind of that which the Roman Triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their destruction. Every man at first stood hard for his friend, till they found that by this means they should spoil their proscription : And at length, making a sac- rifice of all their acquaintance and relations, furnished out a 25 very decent execution. Having thus taken my resolutions to march on boldly in the cause of Virtue and good Sense, and to annoy their adversaries in whatever degree or rank of men they may be found : I shall be deaf for the future to all the remonstrances that shall be 30 made to me on this account. If Punch grows extravagant, I' shall reprimand him very freely : If the Stage becomes a nurs- ery of folly and impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animad- vert upon it. In short, if I meet with any thing in City, Court, or Country, that shocks modesty or good manners, I shall use THE SPECTATOR 85 my utmost [endeavours] 1 to make an example of it. I must however intreat every particular person, who does me the honour to be a reader of this paper, never to think himself, or any one of his friends or enemies, aimed at in what is said : For I promise him, never to draw a faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand people ;- or to publish a single paper that is not written in the spirit of benevolence, and with a love to mankind. N° 37. Thursday, April 12. [171 1.] Non ilia colo calathisve Minerva Fcemineas assucta manus. Virg. Some months ago, my friend Sir Roger being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain Lady whom I shall 10 here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her Ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her Lady's Library, till such time as she was in a readiness to 15 receive me. The very sound of a Lady's Library gave me a great curiosity to see it ; and, as it was some time before the Lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great- many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beau- tiful order. At the end of the Folio's (which were finely bound 20 and gilt) were great Jars of China placed one above another in a very noble piece of [Architecture 2 ] . The Quarto's were sep- arated from the Octavo's by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful Pyramid. The Octavo's were bounded by Tea-dishes of all shapes, colours and sizes, which were so dis- 25 posed on a wooden frame, that they looked like one continued 1 So S and C ; T has " endavours." 2 So S and C; T has " Artchitecture." 86 THE SPECTATOR Pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with the greatest variety of dyes. That part of the Library which was designed for the reception of Plays and Pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, con- S sisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and made up of Scaramouches, Lions, Monkies, Mandarines, Trees, Shells, and a thousand other odd figures in China ware. In the midst of the room was a little Japan table, with a quire of gilt Paper upon it, and on the Paper a silver Snuff-box made 10 in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the numbers, like Fagots in the muster of a Regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixt kind of furniture, as seemed very suitable to both 15 the Lady and the Scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy my self in a Grotto, or in a Library. Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the Lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard 20 them praised, or because she had seen the Authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow. Ogleby's Virgil. Dryden's Juvenal. 2$ Cassandra. Cleopatra. Astreea. Sir Isaac Newton 1 % works. The Grand Cyrus ; with a Pin stuck in one of the middle leaves. 30 Pembroke's Arcadia. Lock of human understanding ; with a paper of Patches in it A Spelling-book. A Dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock upon Death. THE SPECTATOR 87 The fifteen comforts of Matrimony. Sir William Temple's Essays. Father Malbranche's search after Truth, translated into English. A book of Novels. The Academy of Compliments. 5 Culpepper's Midwifery. The Ladies Calling. Tales in verse by Mr. Durfey : Bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. All the Classick Authors in wood. 10 A set of Elzivirs by the same hand. Clelia : Which opened of it self in the place that describes two Lovers in a Bower. Baker's Chronicle. Advice to a Daughter. 15 The new Atalantis, with a Key to it. Mr. Steele's Christian Heroe. A Prayer book : With a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it. Dr. SacheverelVs Speech. 20 Fielding's Tryal. Seneca's Morals. Taylor's holy Living and Dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. I was taking a Catalogue in my pocket-book of these, and 25 several other Authors, when Leonora entred, and upon my presenting her with the Letter from the Knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health : I answered Yes, for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. 30 Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a reso- lution never to venture upon a second. She has no children, to take care of, and leaves the management of her Estate to 35 88 THE SPECTATOR my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of Lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favourite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passions of her Sex, into a love of books and retirement. S She converses chiefly with men, (as she has often said her self) but it is only in their writings ; and admits of very few male- visitants, except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure, and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among Romances, it has given her a very particular 10 turn of thinking, and discovers it self even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger has entertained me an hour together with a description of her country-seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles dis- tant from London, and looks like a little enchanted Palace. 15 The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes covered with wood-bines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of Turtles. The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected 20 into a beautiful Lake, that is inhabited by a couple of Swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of The purl- ing Stream. The Knight likewise tells me, that this Lady preserves her game better than any of the Gentlemen in the 25 country, not (says Sir Roger) that she sets so great a value upon her Partridges and Pheasants, as upon her Larks and Nightingales. For she says that every bird which is killed in her ground, will spoil a consort, and that she shall certanly miss him the next year. 30 When I think how odly this Lady is improved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed to her self how much more valuable does she appear than those of her Sex who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable THE SPECTATOR 89 though more in fashion ? What improvements would a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided to such books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectifie the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use than to divert 5 the imagination? But the manner of a Lady's employing her self usefully in reading shall be the subject of another Paper, in which I design to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement of the Sex. And as this is a subject of a very 10 nice nature, I shall desire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it. N° 39. Saturday, April 14. [1711.] Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum, Cum scribo Hor. As a perfect Tragedy is the noblest production of human nature, so it is capable of giving the mind one of the most delightful and most improving entertainments. A virtuous 15 man (says Seneca) strugling with misfortunes, is such a spec- tacle as Gods might look upon with pleasure : And such a pleasure it is which one meets with in the representation of a well-written Tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They 20 cherish and cultivate that humanity which is the ornament of our nature. They soften insolence, sooth affliction, and subdue the mind to the dispensations of Providence. It is no wonder therefore that in all the polite nations of the world, this part of the Drama has met with publick 25 encouragement. The modern Tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome, in the intricacy and disposition of the Fable ; but, what a Christian 90 THE SPECTATOR writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the moral part of the performance. This I may shew more at large hereafter ; and in the mean time, that I may contribute something towards the improve- 5 ment of the English Tragedy, I shall take notice, in this and in other following papers, of some particular parts in it that seem liable to exception. Aristotle observes, that the Iambick verse in the Greek tongue was the most proper for Tragedy : because at the 10 same time that it lifted up the discourse from Prose, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of Verse. For, says he, we may observe- that men in ordinary discourse very often speak lambicks, without taking notice of it. We may make the same observation of our English 15 Blank verse, which often enters into our common discourse, though we do not attend to it, and is such a due medium between Rhyme and Prose, that it seems wonderfully adapted to Tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I see a Play in Rhyme ; which is as absurd in English, as a 20 Tragedy of Hexameters would have been in Greek or Latin. The Soloecism is, I think, still greater, in those Plays that have some 'Scenes in Rhyme and some in Blank verse, which are to be looked upon as two several languages; or where we see some particular Similes dignified with Rhyme, at 25 the same time that every thing about them lyes in Blank verse. I would not however debar the Poet from concluding his Tragedy, or, if he pleases, every Act of it, with two or three Couplets, which may have the same effect as an Air in the Italian Opera after a long Recitativo, and give the Actor 30 a graceful Exit. Besides, that we see a diversity of num- bers in some parts of the Old Tragedy, in order to hinder the ear from being tired with the same continued modulation of voice. For the same reason I do not dislike the speeches in our English Tragedy that close with an ffetnistick, or half THE SPECTATOR 91 verse, notwithstanding the person who speaks after it begins a new verse, without filling up the preceding one ; nor with abrupt pauses and breakings-off in the middle of a verse, when they humour any Passion that is expressed by it. Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that our 5 English Poets have succeeded much better in the Stile, than in the Sentiments of their Tragedies. Their language is very often noble and sonorous, but the sense either very trifling or very common. On the contrary, in the ancient Tragedies, and indeed in those of Corneille and Racine, though the 10 expressions are very great, it is the thought that bears them up and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble sentiment that is depressed with homely language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the sound and energy of expression. Whether this defect in our Tragedies 15 may rise from want of genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or from their compliance with the vicious taste of their readers, who are better judges of the language than of the sentiments, and consequently relish the one more than the other, I cannot determine. But I believe it might rec- 20 tifie the conduct both of the one and of the other, if the writer laid down the whole contexture of his dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into blank verse ; and if the reader, after the perusal of a scene, would consider the naked thought of every speech in it, when divested of all its Tragick 25 ornaments; by this means, without being imposed upon by words, we may judge impartially of the thought, and consider whether it be natural or great enough for the person that utters it, whether it deserves to shine in such a blaze of elo- quence, or shew it self in such a variety of lights as are gen- 30 erally made use of by the writers of our English Tragedy. I must in the next place observe, that when our thoughts are great and just, they are often obscured by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced expressions in which 92 THE SPECTATOR they are cloathed. Skakespear is often very faulty in this particular. There is a fine observation in Aristotle to this purpose, which I have never seen quoted. The expression, says he, ought to be very much laboured in the unactive 5 parts of the fable, as in descriptions, similitudes, narrations, and the like; in which the opinions, manners, and passions of men are not represented ; for these, (namely the opinions, manners and passions) are apt to be obscured by pompous phrases, and elaborate expressions. Horace, who copied most 10 of his criticisms after Aristotle, seems to have had his eye on the foregoing rule, in the following verses : Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri. Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque, Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba, 15 .SV curat cor spectantis tetigisse quereld. Tragmdians too lay by their state, to grieve. Peleus and Telephus, exiVd and poor, Forget their swelling and gigantick words. Ld. Roscommon. Among our modern English Poets, there is none who was 20 better turned for Tragedy than Lee ; if instead of favouring the impetuosity of his genius, he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to Tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words, that it is hard to see the beauty of them : There is an infinite fire in 25 his works, but so involved in smoak, that it does not appear in half its lustre. He frequently succeeds in the passionate parts of the Tragedy, but more particularly where he slackens his efforts, and eases the stile of those Epithets and Metaphors, in which he so much abounds. What can be more natural, more 30 soft, or more passionate, than that line in Statira's speech, where she describes the charms of Alexander's conversation? Then he would talk : Good Gods / how he would talk / THE SPECTATOR 93 That unexpected break in the line, and turning the descrip- tion of his manner of talking into an admiration of it, is inex- pressibly beautiful, and wonderfully suited to the fond character of the person that speaks it. There is a simplicity in the words, that outshines the utmost pride of expression. 5 Otway has followed Nature in the language of his Tragedy, and therefore shines in the passionate parts, more than any of our English Poets. As there is something familiar and domes- tick in the fable of his Tragedy, more than in those of any other Poet, he has little pomp, but great force in his expressions. 10 For which reason, though he has admirably succeeded in the tender and melting part of his Tragedies, he sometimes falls into too great a familiarity of phrase in those parts, which, by Aristotle's rule, ought to have been raised and supported by the dignity of expression. 1 5 It has been observed by others, that this Poet has founded his Tragedy of Venice Preserved on so wrong a Plot, that the greatest characters in it are those of rebels and traitors. Had the Heroe of his Play discovered the same good qualities in the defence of his country, that he shewed for its ruine and 20 subversion, the audience could not enough pity and admire him : But as he is now represented, we can only say of him what the Roman Historian says of Catiline, that his fall would have been glorious (si pro patria sic concidissef) had he so fallen in the service of his country. 25 94 THE SPECTATOR N° 40. Monday, April id. [1711.] Ac ne forte putes me, qua facere ipse recusem, Cum recte tractant alii, laudare maligne ; Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur Ire Poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, Ut magus ; et modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis. Hor. The English writers of Tragedy are possessed with a notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent person in dis- tress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his troubles, or made him triumph over his enemies. 5 This error they have been led into by a ridiculous doctrine in modern criticism, that they are obliged to an equal distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical justice. Who were the first that established this rule I know not ; but I am sure it has no foundation in nature, in 10 reason, or in the practice of the Ancients. We find that good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave ; and as the principal design of Tragedy is to raise commiseration and terror in the minds of the audience, we shall defeat this great end, if we always make virtue and innocence happy and 15 successful. Whatever crosses and disappointments a good man suffers in the body of the Tragedy, they will make but small impression on our minds, when we know that in the last act he is to arrive at the end of his wishes and desires. When we see him engaged in the depth of his afflictions, we are apt to 20 comfort our selves, because we are sure he will find his way out of them ; and that his grief, how great soever it may be at present, will soon terminate in gladness. For this reason the ancient writers of Tragedy treated men in their Plays, as they are dealt with in the world, by making virtue sometimes happy, 2,5 and sometimes miserable, as they found it in the fable which THE SPECTATOR 95 they made choice of, or as it might affect their audience in the most agreeable manner. Aristotle considers the Tragedies that were written in either of these kinds, and observes, that those which ended unhappily, had always pleased the people, and carried away the prize in the publick disputes of the stage, 5 from those that ended happily. Terror and commiseration leave a pleasing anguish in the mind ; and fix the audience in such a serious composure of thought, as is much more lasting and delightful than any little transient starts of joy and satisfaction. Accordingly, we find, that more of our English Tragedies have 10 succeeded, in which the favourites of the audience sink under their calamities, than those in which they recover themselves out of them. The best Plays of this kind are the Orphan, Venice preserved, Alexander the Great, Theodosius, All for Love, Oedipus, Oroonoko, Othello, &c. King Lear is an admirable 15 Tragedy of the same kind, as Shakespear wrote it ; but as it is reformed according to the chimerical notion of poetical jus- tice, in my humble opinion it has lost half its beauty. At the same time I must allow, that there are very noble Tragedies, which have been framed upon the other plan, and have ended 20 happily; as indeed most of the good Tragedies, which have been written since the starting of the above-mentioned criti- cism, have taken this turn : as the Mourning Bride, Tamerlane, Ulysses, Phcedra and Hippolytus, with most of Mr. Dryden's. I must also allow, that many of Shakespear^, and several of 25 the celebrated Tragedies of antiquity, are cast in the same form. I do not therefore dispute against this way of writing Tragedies, but against the criticism that would establish this as the only method ; and by that means would very much cramp the English Tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong bent to the 30 genius of our writers. The Tragi-comedy, which is the product of the English Theatre, is one of the most monstrous inventions that ever entered into a Poet's thoughts. An Author might as well 96 THE SPECTATOR think of weaving the adventures of Aineas and Hudibras into one Poem, as of writing such a motly piece of mirth and sorrow. But the absurdity of these performances is so very visible, that I shall not insist upon it. 5 The same objections which are made to Tragi-comedy, may in some measure be applied to all Tragedies that have a double Plot in them; which are likewise more frequent upon the English Stage, than upon any other : For though the grief of the audience, in such performances, be not changed io into another passion, as in Tragi-comedies ; it is diverted upon another object, which weakens their concern for the principal action, and breaks the tide of sorrow, by throwing it into different channels. This inconvenience, however, may in a great measure be cured, if not wholly removed, 1 5 by the skilful choice of an Under- plot, which may bear such a near relation to the principal design, as to contribute towards the completion of it, and be concluded by the same Catastrophe. There is also another particular, which may be reckoned 20 among the blemishes, or rather the false beauties of our English Tragedy : I mean those particular Speeches which are commonly known by the name of Rants. The warm and passionate parts of a Tragedy, are always the most taking with the audience ; for which reason we often see the Players 25 pronouncing, in all the violence of action, several parts- of the Tragedy which the Author writ with great temper, and designed that they should have been so acted. I have seen Powell very often raise himself a loud clap by this artifice. The Poets that were acquainted with this secret, have given 30 frequent occasion for such emotions in the Actor, by adding, vehemence to words where there was no passion, or inflam- ing a real passion into fustian. This hath filled the mouths of our Heroes with bombast; and given them such senti- ments, as proceed rather from a swelling than a greatness THE SPECTATOR 97 of mind. Unnatural exclamations, curses, vows, blasphemies, a defiance of mankind, and an outraging of the Gods, fre- quently pass upon the audience for tow'ring thoughts, and have accordingly met with infinite applause. I shall here add a remark, which I am afraid our Tragick 5 writers may make an ill use of. As our Heroes are generally Lovers, their swelling and blustring upon the Stage very much recommends them to the fair part of their audience. The Ladies are wonderfully pleased to see a man insulting Kings or affronting the Gods, in one Scene, and throwing himself 10 at the feet of his Mistress in another. Let him behave him- self insolently towards the men, and abjectly towards the Fair one, and it is ten to one but he proves a favourite of the boxes. Dryden and Lee, in several of their Tragedies, have practised this secret with good success. 15 But to shew how a Rant pleases beyond the most just and natural thought that is not pronounced with vehemence, I would desire the Reader, when he sees the Tragedy of Oedipus, to observe how quietly the Hero is dismissed at the end of the third Act, after having pronounced the following lines, 20 in which the thought is very natural, and apt to move com- passion. To you, good Gods, I make my last appeal, Or clear ?ny virtues, or my crimes reveal. If in the maze of Fate I blindly run, 25 And backward trod those paths I sought to shun ; Impute my errors to your own decree : My hands are guilty,, but my heart is free. Let us then observe with what thunder-claps of applause he leaves the Stage, after the impieties and execrations at the 30 end of the fourth Act; and you will wonder to see an audience so cursed and so pleased at the same time. 98 THE SPECTATOR O that as oft I have at Athens seen [Where, by the way, there was no Stage till many years after Oedipus.] The Stage arise, and the big clouds descend; So now in very deed, I might behold This ponderous Globe, and all yon marble roof, Meet like the hands of Jove, and crush mankind, For all the Elements, &c. ADVERTISEMENT. Having spoken of Mr. Powell, as sometimes raising himself applause from the ill taste of an audience ; I must do him the justice to own, that he is excellently formed for a Tragedian, and, when he pleases, deserves the admiration of the best judges ; as I doubt not but he will in the Conquest of Mexico, which is acted for his own benefit to-morrow night. N° 50. Friday, April 27. [1711.] Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dixit. Juv. When the four Indian Kings were in this country about a 15 twelve-month ago, I often mixed with the rabble, and followed them a whole day together, being wonderfully, struck with the sight of every thing that is new or uncommon. I have, since their departure, employed a friend to make many enquiries of their Landlord the Upholsterer, relating to their manners and 20 conversation, as also concerning the remarks which they made in this country : for, next to the forming a right notion of such strangers, I should be desirous of learning what ideas they have conceived of us. The Upholsterer finding my friend very inquisitive about 25 these his Lodgers, brought him some time since a little bundle of papers, which he assured him were written by King Sa Ga THE SPECTATOR 99 Yean Qua Rash Tow, and, as he supposes, left behind by some mistake. ' These papers are now translated, and contain abun- dance of very odd observations, which I find this little fraternity of Kings made during their stay in the Isle of Great Britain. I shall present my reader with a short Specimen of them in 5 this paper, and may perhaps communicate more to him here- after. In the article of London are the following words, which without doubt are meant of the Church of St. Paul. " On the most rising part of the town there stands a huge " house, big enough to contain the whole nation of which I am 10 " King. Our good Brother E Tow O Koam, King of the " Rivers, is of opinion it was made by the hands of that great " God to whom it is consecrated. The Kings of Granajah and " of the Six Nations believe that it was created with the Earth, " and produced on the same day with the Sun and Moon. But 15 " for my own part, by the best information that I could get of " this matter, I am apt to think that this prodigious Pile was " fashioned into the shape it now bears by several tools and " instruments, of which they have a wonderful variety in this " country. It was probably at first an huge mis-shapen rock 20 " that grew upon the top of the hill, which the natives of the "country (after having cut it into a kind of regular figure) " bored and hollowed with incredible pains and industry, till " they had wrought in it all those beautiful vaults and caverns " into which it is divided at this day. As soon as this rock was 25 " thus curiously scooped to their liking, a prodigious number " of hands must have been employed in chipping the out-side " of it, which is now as smooth as the surface of a pebble ; " and is in several places hewn out into Pillars, that stand like " the trunks of so many trees bound about the top with gar- 30 " lands of leaves. It is probable that when this great work " was begun, which must have been many hundred years ago, " there was some religion among this people, for they give " it the name of a Temple, and have a tradition that it was ioo THE SPECTATOR " designed for men to pay their devotion in. And indeed, there " are several reasons which make us think, that the natives of " this country had formerly among them some sort of worship ; " for they set apart every seventh day as sacred : but upon my 5 " going into one of these holy houses on that day, I could not " observe any circumstance of devotion in their behaviour : " there was indeed a man in black who was mounted above the " rest, and seemed to utter something with a great deal of vehe- " mence ; but as for those underneath him, instead of paying io " their worship to the Deity of the place, they were most of " them bowing and curtesying to one another, and a consider- " able number of them fast asleep. " The Queen of the country appointed two men to attend " us, that had enough of our language to make themselves 15 "understood in some few particulars. But we soon per- "ceived these two were great enemies to one another, and " did not always agree in the same story. We could make a " shift to gather out of one of them, that this Island was very " much infested with a monstrous kind of Animals, in the 20 " shape of men, called Whigs ; and he often told us, that he "hoped we should meet with none of them in our way, for "that if we did, they would be apt to knock us down for "being Kings. " Our other interpreter used to talk very much of a kind of 25 "Animal called a Tory, that was as great a monster as the " Whig, and would treat us as ill for being Foreigners. These " two creatures, it seems, are born with a secret antipathy to " one another, and engage when they meet as naturally as the " Elephant and the Rhinoceros. But as we saw none of either 30 " of these species, we are apt to think that our guides deceived " us with misrepresentations and fictions, and amused us with an " account of such monsters as are not really in their country. "These particulars we made a shift to pick out from the " discourse of our interpreters ; which we put together as well THE SPECTATOR IOI " as we could, being able to understand but here and there a " word of what they said, and afterwards making up the mean- " ing of it among our selves. The men of the country are very "cunning and ingenious in handicraft works; but withal so "very idle, that we often saw young lusty raw-boned fellows 5 " carried up and down the streets in little covered rooms by a " couple of Porters, who are hired for that service. Their dress " is likewise very barbarous, for they almost strangle themselves " about the neck, and bind their bodies with many ligatures, " that we are apt to think are the occasion of several distempers 10 " among them, which our country is entirely free from. Instead " of those beautiful feathers with which we adorn our heads, " they often buy up a monstrous bush of hair, which covers their " heads, and falls down in a large fleece below the middle of " their backs; with which they walk up and down the streets, 15 " and are as proud of it as if it was of their own growth. " We were invited to one of their publick diversions, where " we hoped to have seen the great men of their country running " down a Stag or pitching a Bar, that we might have discovered " who were the persons of the greatest abilities among them ; 20 " but instead of that, they conveyed us into an huge room " lighted up with abundance of candles, where this lazy people " sate still above three hours to see several feats of ingenuity " performed by others, who it seems were paid for it. " As for the women of the country, not being able to talk 25 "with them, we could only make our remarks upon them at a " distance. They let the hair of their heads grow to a great " length ; but as the men make a great show with heads of " hair that are none of their own, the women, who they say " have very fine heads of hair, tie it up in a knot, and cover it 30 " from being seen. The women look like Angels, and would " be more beautiful than the Sun, were it not for little black " spots that are apt to break out in their faces, and sometimes " rise in very odd figures. I have observed that those little I02 THE SPECTATOR "blemishes wear off very soon; but when they disappear m "one part of the face, they are very apt to break out in "another, insomuch that I have seen a spot upon the fore- "head in the afternoon, which was upon the chin in the 5 " morning. The Author then proceeds to shew the absurdity of breeches and petticoats, with many other curious observations, which I shall reserve for another occasion. I cannot however con- clude this paper without taking notice, that amidst these wild 10 remarks, there now and then appears something very reason- able. I cannot likewise forbear observing, that we are all guilty in some measure of the same narrow way of thinking, which we meet with in this abstract of the Indian Journal; when we fancy the customs, dresses, and manners of other coun- 15 tries are ridiculous and extravagant, if they do not resemble those of our own. N° 70. Monday, May 21. [171 1.] Interdum valgus rectum videt. Hor. When I travelled, I took a particular delight in hearing the Songs and Fables that are come from Father to Son, and are most in vogue among the common people of the countries 20 through which I passed; for it is impossible that any thing should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to please and gratifie the mind of man. Human nature is the same in all reasonable creatures ; 25 and whatever falls in with it, will meet with admirers amongst Readers of all qualities and conditions. Moliere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, used to read all his Comedies to an old woman who was his House-keeper, as she sate with him at THE SPECTATOR 103 her work by the chimney-corner ; and could foretel the suc- cess of his Play in the Theatre, from the reception it met at his fire-side : for he tells us the Audience always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same place. I know nothing which more shews the essential and inherent 5 perfection of simplicity of thought, above that which I call the Gothick manner in writing, than this ; the first pleases all kinds of palates, and the latter only such as have formed to them- selves a wrong artificial taste upon little fanciful Authors and writers of Epigram. Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the 10 Language of their Poems is understood, will please a Reader of plain common sense, who would neither relish nor compre- hend an Epigram of Martial, or a Poem of Cowley: So, on the contrary, an ordinary Song or Ballad that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail to please all such Readers as 15 are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation of Ignorance ; and the reason is plain, because the same paint- ings of Nature which recommend it to the most ordinary Reader, will appear beautiful to the most refined. The old Song of Chevy-Chase is the favourite Ballad of the 20 common people of England, and Ben. Johnson used to say he had rather have been the Author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney in his discourse of Poetry speaks of it in the following words ; I never heard the old Song of Piercy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a 25 Trumpet ; and yet it is sung by some blind Crowder with no rougher voice than rude stile ; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar? For my own part I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated Song, 30 that I shall give my Reader a Critick upon it, without any further apology for so doing. The greatest modern Criticks have laid it down as a rule, That an heroick Poem should be founded upon some important 104 THE SPECTATOR precept of Morality, adapted to the constitution of the country in which the Poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view. As Greece was a collection of many Governments, who suffered very much among themselves, and 5 gave the Persian Emperor, who was their common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealousies and animosities, Homer, in order to establish among them an union, which was so necessary for their safety, grounds his Poem upon the discords of the several Grecian Princes who 10 were engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatick Prince, and the several advantages which the enemy gained by such their discords. At the time the Poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the Barons, who were then so many petty Princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled 15 among themselves, or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country : The Poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battel and dreadful scene of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an English and Scotch 20 Nobleman : That he designed this for the instruction of his Poem, we may learn from his four last lines, in which, after the example of the modern Tragedians, he draws from it a precept for the benefit of his Readers. God save the King, and bless the land 25 In plenty, joy, and peace ; And grant henceforth that foul debate , Twixt Noblemen may cease. The next point observed by the greatest heroic Poets, hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour 30 to their country : Thus Virgil's Hero was the Founder of Some, Homer's a Prince of Greece ; and for this reason Vale- rius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the Golden THE SPECTATOR 105 Fleece and the wars of Thebes, for the subjects of their Epic writings. The Poet before us, has not only found out an Hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beauti- ful incidents. The English are the first who take the field, 5 and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battel, and the Scotch two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty three : the Scotch retire with fifty five : all the rest on each side being slain in battel. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind, is the differ- 10 ent manner in which the Scotch and English Kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great mens deaths who commanded in it. This news was brought to Edinburgh, Where Scotland 's King did reign, 15 That brave Earl Douglas suddenly Was with an arrow slain. Oh heavy news, King James did say, Scotland can witness be, I have not any Captain more 20 Of such account as he. Like tidings to King Henry came Within as short a space, That Piercy of Northumberland Was slain in Chevy-Chase. 25 Now God be with him, said our King, Sith 'twill no better be, 7 trust I have within my Realm Five hundred as good as he. Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland say 30 But I will vengeance take, And be revenged on them all For brave Lord Piercy'j sake. 106 THE SPECTATOR This Vow full well the King perform 'd After on Humble-down, In one day fifty Knights were slain:, With Lords of great renown. 5 And of the rest of small account Did many thousands dye, &c. At the same time that our Poet shews a laudable partiality to his Country-men, he represents the Scots after a manner not unbecoming so bold and brave a people. 10 Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Most like a Baron bold, Rode foremost of the company, Whose armour shone like Gold. His sentiments and actions are every way suitable to an Hero. 15 One of us two, says he, must dye : I am an Earl as well as your self, so that you can have no pretence for refusing the combat : However, says he, 'tis pity, and indeed would be a sin, that so many innocent men should perish for our sakes, rather let you and I end our quarrel in single fight. 20 E'er thus I will out-braved be, One of us two shall dye ; I know thee well, an Earl thou art, Lord Piercy, so am I. But trust me, Piercy, pity it were, 25 And great offence, to kill Any of these our harmless men, For they have done no ill. Let thou and I the battel try, And set our men aside ; 30 Accurst be he, Lord Piercy said, By whom this is denyd. THE SPECTATOR 107 When these brave men had distinguished themselves in the battel, and in single combat with each other, in the midst of a generous parly, full of heroic sentiments, the Scotch Earl falls; and with his dying words encourages his men to revenge his death, representing to them, as the most bitter j circumstances of it, that his rival saw him fall. With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart A deep and deadly blow. 10 Who never spoke more words than these, Fight on my merry men all, For why, my life is at an end, Lord Piercy sees my fall. Merry Men, in the language of those times, is no more than 15 a chearful word for companions and fellow-soldiers. A pas- sage in the eleventh book of Virgil's jiLneids is very much to be admired, where Camilla in her last agonies instead of weeping over the wound she had received, as one might have expected from a warrior of her sex, considers only (like the 20 Heroe of whom we are now speaking) how the battel should be continued after her death. Turn sic expirans, &c. A gathering mist o'erclouds her chearful eyes ; And from her cheeks the rosie colour flies. 25 Then turns to her, whom, of her female train, She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain. Acca, His past I he swims before my sight, Inexorable death ; and claims his right. Bear my last words to Turnus, fly with speed, 3a And bid him timely to my charge succeed: Repel the Trojans, and the Town relieve : Farewel. 108 THE SPECTATOR Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner; though oui Poet seems to have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last verse, Lord Piercy sees my fall. Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas Ausonii videre- Earl Piercy\ lamentation over his enemy is generousj beautiful, and passionate ; I must only caution the Reader not to let the simplicity of the stile, which one may well 10 pardon in so old a Poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought. Then leaving life, Earl Piercy took The dead man by the hand, And said, Earl Douglas for thy life IS Would I had lost my land. O Christ / my very heart doth bleed With sorrow for thy sake ; For sure a more renowned Knight Mischance did never take. 20 That beautiful line, Taking the dead man by the hand will put the Reader in mind of s£neas's behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain as he came to the rescue of his aged father. At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora, 25 Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris : Ingemuit miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit, &c. The pious Prince beheld young Lausus dead; He griev'd, he wept ; then grasp 'd his hand, and said, Poor hapless youth > what praises can be paid 30 To worth so great — / I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old Song. THE SPECTATOR 109 N° 72. Wednesday, May 23. [171 1.] Genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum. Virg. Having already given my Reader an account of several extraordinary Clubs both ancient and modern, I did not design to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature ; but I have lately received information of a Club which I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I dare say will be no 5 less surprising to my Reader than it was to my self ; for which reason I shall communicate it to the publick as one of the greatest curiosities in its kind. A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman who is related to him, after having represented him as a very idle worthless 10 fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the everlasting Club. So very odd a title raised my curiosity to enquire into the nature of a Club that had such a sounding name; upon which my friend gave me 15 the following account. The everlasting Club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty four hours among them in such a manner, that the Club sits day and night from one end of the year to another ; no party presuming to rise till they are 20 relieved by those who are in course to succeed them. By this means a member of the everlasting Club never wants company ; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is sure to find some who are ; so that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evenings draught, or a bottle after mid- 25 night, he goes to the Club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind. It is a maxim in this Club that the Steward never dies ; for as they succeed one another by way of rotation, no man is to HO THE SPECTATOR quit the great elbow-chair which stands at the upper end of the table, till his successor is in a readiness to fill it ; insomuch that there has not been a Sede vacante in the memory of man. This Club was instituted towards the end (or, as some of 5 them say, about the middle) of the Civil Wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire, which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The Steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, (which was demolished 10 in order to stop the fire ;) and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the Club to withdraw himself. This Steward is frequently talked of in the Club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man, than the famous Captain 15 mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said that towards the close of 1 700, being the great year of Jubilee, the Club had it under consideration whether they should break up or continue their session ; but after many speeches and debates, 20 it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This reso- lution passed in a general Club Nemine contradicente. Having given this short account of the institution and con- tinuation of the everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its several 25 members, which I shall do according to the best light I have received in this matter. It appears by their books in general, that since their first institution they have smoaked fifty tun of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two 30 hundred barrels of brandy, and a kilderkin of small beer : there has been likewise a great consumption of cards. It is also said, that they observe the law in Ben Johnson's Club, which orders the fire to be always kept in {focus perennis estd) as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampness THE SPECTATOR in of the Club-room. They have an old woman in the nature of a Vestal, whose business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire, which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times. The everlasting Club treats all other Clubs with an eye of 5 contempt, and talks even of the Kit- Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse (as much as I have been able to learn of it) turns altogether upon such adven- tures as have passed in their own assembly ; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without 10 stirring out of the Club ; of others who have smoaked an hun- dred pipes at a sitting ; of others who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together : sometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in King Charles'?, reign ; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whisk, which 1 5 have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the case was desperate. They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking ; with many other edifying exhor- 20 rations of the like nature. There are four general Clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire- maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries. 25 The senior member has out-lived the whole Club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting members. H2 THE SPECTATOR N° 81. Saturday, June 2. [1711.] Qualis ubi audita venantum murmure tigris Horruit in maculas Statius. About the middle of last winter I went to see an Opera at the Theatre in the Hay-market, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed them- selves in the opposite side-boxes, and seemed drawn up in a 5 kind of battle-array one against another. After a short survey of them, I found they were Patched differently ; the faces, on one hand, being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those upon the other on the left : I quickly perceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another ; and that their Patches 10 were placed in those different situations, as party-signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middle-boxes, between these two opposite bodies, were several Ladies who patched indifferently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit there with no other intention but to see the Opera. Upon 15 enquiry I found, that the body of Amazons on my right hand were Whigs, and those on my left, Tories : and that those who had placed themselves in the middle-boxes were a neutral party, whose faces had not yet declared themselves. These last, how- ever, as I afterwards found, diminished daily, and took their 20 party with one side or the other; insomuch that I observed in several of them, the patches, which were before dispersed equally, are now all gone over to the Whig or Tory side of the face. The censorious say, that the men whose hearts are aimed at, are very often the occasions that one part of the face is thus 25 dishonoured, and lies under a kind of disgrace, while the other is so much set off and adorned by the owner; and that the Patches turn to the right or to the left, according to the prin- ciples of the man who is most in favour. But whatever may be the motives of a few fantastical Coquettes, who do not THE SPECTATOR 1 13 Patch for the publick good so much as for their own private advantage, it is certain, that there are several women of honour who Patch out of principle, and with an eye to the interest of their country. Nay, I am informed that some of them adhere so stedfastly to their party, and are so far from sacrificing their 5 zeal for the publick to their passion for any particular person, that in a late draught of marriage-articles a Lady has stipulated with her husband, that whatever his opinions are, she shall be at liberty to patch on which side she pleases. I must here take notice that Rosalinda, a famous Whig par- 10 tizan, has most unfortunately a very beautiful mole on the Tory part of her forehead ; which being very conspicuous, has occa- sioned many mistakes, and given an handle to her enemies to misrepresent her face, as though it had revolted from the whig interest. But, whatever this natural patch may seem to insin- 15 uate, it is well known that her notions of Government are still the same. This unlucky mole, however, has mis-led several coxcombs; and like the hanging out of false colours, made some of them converse with Rosalinda in what they thought the spirit of her party, when on a sudden she has given them 20 an unexpected fire, that has sunk them all at once. If Rosa- linda is unfortunate in her mole, Nigranilla is as unhappy in a pimple, which forces her, against her inclinations, to patch on the whig side. I am told that many virtuous matrons, who formerly have 25 been taught to believe that this artificial spotting of the face was unlawful, are now reconciled by a zeal for their cause, to what they could not be prompted by a concern for their beauty. This way of declaring war upon one another, puts me in mind of what is reported of the Tygress, that several spots rise in 30 her skin when she is angry ; or as Mr. Cowley has imitated the verses that stand as the Motto of this paper, She swells with angry pride, And calls forth all her spots on ev'ry side. 114 THE SPECTATOR When I was in the Theatre the time above-mentioned, I had the curiosity to count the Patches on both sides, and found the Tory Patches to be about twenty stronger than the Whig ; but to make amends for this small inequality, I the next morn- 5 ing found the whole Puppet-shew filled with faces spotted after the Whiggish manner. Whether or no the Ladies had retreated hither in order to rally their forces, I cannot tell ; but the next night they came in so great a body to the Opera, that they out-numbered the enemy. to This account of Party-patches will, I am afraid, appear improbable to those who live at a distance from the fashion- able world ; but as it is a distinction of a very singular nature, and what perhaps may never meet with a parallel, I think I should not have discharged the office of a faithful Spectator, 15 had I not recorded it. I have, in former papers, endeavoured to expose this Party- rage in women, as it only serves to aggravate the hatred and animosities that reign among men, and in a great measure deprives the Fair sex of those peculiar charms with which 20 nature has endowed them. When the Romans and Sabines were at war, and just upon the point of giving battel, the women who were allied to both of them, interposed with so many tears and intreaties, that they prevented 'the mutual slaughter which threatned both parties, 25 and united them together in a firm and lasting peace. I would recommend this noble example to our British Ladies, at a time when their country is torn with so many unnatural divisions, that if they continue, it will be a mis- fortune to be born in it. The Greeks thought it so improper 3° for women to interest themselves in competitions and con- tentions, that for this reason, among others, they forbad them, under pain of death, to be present at the Olympick games, notwithstanding these were the publick diversions of all Greece. THE SPECTATOR 1 15 As our English women excel those of all nations in beauty, they should endeavour to outshine them in all other accom- plishments proper to the sex, and to distinguish themselves as tender mothers and faithful wives, rather than as furious partizans. Female vertues are of a domestick turn. The 5 family is the proper province for private women to shine in. If they must be shewing their zeal for the publick, let it not be against those who are perhaps of the same family, or at least of the same religion or nation, but against those who are the open, professed, undoubted enemies of their faith, 10 liberty and country. When the Romans were pressed with a foreign enemy, the Ladies voluntarily contributed all their rings and jewels to assist the Government under the publick exigence, which appeared so laudable an action in the eyes of their countrymen, that from thenceforth it was permitted 15 by a law to pronounce publick orations at the funeral of a woman in praise of the deceased person, which till that time was peculiar to men. Would our English Ladies, instead of sticking on a patch against those of their own country, shew themselves so truly publick-spirited as to sacrifice every one 20 her necklace against the common enemy, what decrees ought not to be made in favour of them? Since I am recollecting upon this subject such passages as occur to my memory out of ancient Authors, I cannot omit a sentence in the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles, which 25 he made in honour of those brave Athenians that were slain in a fight with the Lacedemonians. After having addressed himself to the several ranks and orders of his countrymen, aiid shewn them how they should behave themselves in the publick cause, he turns to the female part of his audience ; 30 "And as for you (says he) I shall advise you in very few " words : Aspire only to those virtues that are peculiar to your " sex ; follow your natural modesty, and think it your greatest " commendation not to be talked of one way or other. 1 1 6 THE SPECTATOR N° 102. Wednesday, June 27. [1711-] Lusus animo debent aliquando dart, Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat sibi. Phaedr. I do not know whether to call the following Letter a satyr upon Coquettes, or a representation of their several fantastical accomplishments, or what other title to give it ; but as it is I shall communicate it to the publick. It will sufficiently explain S its own intentions, so that I shall give it my Reader at length without either Preface or Postscript. Mr. Spectator, " Women are armed with Fans as men with Swords, and some- " times do more execution with them. To the end therefore " that Ladies may be entire Mistresses of the weapon which 10 " they bear, I have erected an Academy for the training up of " young women in the Exercise of the Fan, according to the " most fashionable airs and motions that are now practised at " Court. The Ladies who carry Fans under me are drawn up " twice a day in my great Hall, where they are instructed in the 15 "use of their Arms, and exercised by the following words of " command, Handle your Fans, Unfurl your Fans, Discharge your Fans, 20 ' Ground your Fans, Recover your Fans, Flutter your Fans. " By the right observation of these few plain words of com- " mand, a woman of a tolerable genius who will apply herself 25 " diligently to her exercise for the space of one half year, shall " be able to give her Fan all the graces that can possibly enter " into that little modish machine. THE SPECTATOR 117 " But to the end that my Readers may form to themselves " a right notion of this Exercise, I beg leave to explain it to " them in all its parts. When my female Regiment is drawn " up in array, with every one her weapon in her hand, upon "my giving the word to handle their Fans, each of them 5 " shakes her Fan at me with a smile, then gives her right-hand " woman a tap upon the shoulder, then presses her lips with " the extremity of her Fan, then lets her arms fall in an easy " motion, and stands in a readiness to receive the next word "of Command. All this is done with a close Fan, and is 10 "generally learned in the first week. " The next motion is that of unfurling the Fan, in which " are comprehended several little flurts and vibrations, as also " gradual arid deliberate openings, with many voluntary fallings "asunder in the Fan it self, that are seldom learned under a 15 "month's practice. This part of the Exercise pleases the " spectators more than any other, as it discovers on a sudden " an infinite number of Cupids, Garlands, Altars, Birds, Beasts, " Rain-bows, and the like agreeable figures, that display them- " selves to view, whilst every one in the regiment holds a 20 "picture in her hand. "Upon my giving the word to discharge their Fans, they " give one general crack that may be heard at a considerable " distance when the wind sits fair. This is one of the most " difficult parts of the Exercise ; but I have several Ladies with 25 " me, who at their first entrance could not give a pop loud " enough to be heard at the further end of a room, who can '" now discharge a Fan in such a manner, that it shall make a "report like a pocket-pistol. I have likewise taken care (in " order to hinder young women from letting off their Fans in 3c " wrong places or unsuitable occasions) to shew upon what " subject the crack of a Fan may come in properly : I have " likewise invented a Fan, with which a girl of sixteen, by the " help of a little wind which is enclosed about one of the largest Ii8 THE SPECTATOR " sticks, can make as loud a crack .as a woman of fifty with an " ordinary Fan. " When the Fans are thus discharged, the word of command " in course is to ground their Fans. This teaches a Lady to S " quit her Fan gracefully when she throws it aside in order to " take up a pack of cards, adjust a curl of hair, replace a fall- " ing pin, or apply her self to any other matter of importance. "This part of the Exercise, as it only consists in tossing a Fan "with an air upon a long table (which stands by for that 10 " purpose) may be learned in two days time as well as in a " twelvemonth. "When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I generally " let them walk about the room for some time ; when on a " sudden (like Ladies that look upon their watches after a 15 " long visit) they all of them hasten to their arms, catch them " up in a hurry, and place themselves in their proper stations " upon my calling out recover your Fans. This part of the " Exercise is not difficult, provided a woman applies her "thoughts to it. 20 " The fluttering of the Fan is the last, and indeed the master- " piece of the whole Exercise ; but if a Lady does not mis- " spend her time, she may make her self mistress of it in three " months. I generally lay aside the dog-days and the hot time " of the summer for the teaching this part of the Exercise, for 25 " as soon as ever I pronounce flutter your Fans, the place is " filled with so many zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very " refreshing in that season of the year, though they might be " dangerous to Ladies of a tender constitution in any other. "There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use 30 " of in the flutter of a Fan : There is the angry Flutter, the " modest Flutter, the timorous Flutter, the confused Flutter, "the merry Flutter, and the amorous Flutter. Not to be " tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does " not produce a suitable agitation in the Fan ; insomuch, that THE SPECTATOR 119 " if I only see the Fan of a disciplined Lady, I know very well " whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a Fan " so very angry, that it would have been dangerous for the " absent lover who provoked it to have come within the wind " of it : and at other times so very languishing, that I have " been glad for the Lady's sake the lover was at a sufficient "distance from it. I need not add, that a Fan is either a " Prude or Coquette, according to the nature of the person " who bears it. To conclude my letter, I must acquaint you " that I have from my own observations compiled a little " Treatise for the use of my scholars, intitled, The passions of " the Fan ; which I will communicate to you, if you think it " may be of use to the publick. I shall have a general review " on Thursday next ; to which you shall be very welcome if " you will honour it with your presence. I am, &c. P. S. " I teach young Gentlemen the whole art of gallanting " a Fan. N. B. " I have several little plain Fans made for this use, to "avoid expence. N° 106. Monday, July 2. [1711.] Hinc tibi copia Manabit ad plenum benigno Ruris honorum opulenta cornu. Hor. Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverly to pass away a month with him in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing Speculations. Sir Roger, who 25 is very well acquainted with my humour, lets me rise and go to bed when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber 120 THE SPECTATOR as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. When the Gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shews me at a distance. As I have been walking in his fields I have observed them stealing a sight of me over an S hedge, and have heard the Knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at. I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, because it consists of sober and staid persons ; for as the Knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants ; and io as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him : by this means his domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his Va'et de Chambre for his brother, his Butler is grey-headed, his Groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and 15 his Coachman has the looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see the goodness of the Master even in the old house-dog, and in a grey pad that is kept in the stable with great care and ten- derness out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless for several years. 20 I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ancient domesticks upon my friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some of them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their old Master ; every one of them pressed forward to do something for him, 25 and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old Knight, with a mixture of the father and the master of the family, tempered the enquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good-nature engages every body to him, so 30 that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with : on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants. THE SPECTATOR 12 I My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his Butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend. 5 My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a Chaplain above thirty years. This Gentleman is a person of good sense and some learning, of a very regular life and oblig- 10 ing conversation : he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's esteem ; so that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependant. I have observed in several of my papers, that my friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is something of an 15 humourist; and that his Virtues, as well as Imperfections, are as it were tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in it self, so it renders his conversation highly agreeable, and 20 more delightful than the same degree of Sense and Virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now mentioned? and without staying for my answer told me, that he was afraid of being 25 insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table; for which reason, he desired a particular friend of his at the University to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man that understood a little of Back-gammon. 30 My friend, says Sir Roger, found me out this Gentleman, who, besides the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar though he does not shew it. I have given him the parsonage of the parish; and because I know his value, 122 THE SPECTATOR have settled upon him a good Annuity for life. If he out- lives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years ; and though he does not know I have taken notice of 5 it, has never in all that time asked any thing of me for himself; though he is every day sollicking me for something in behalf of one or other of my tenants his parishioners. There has not been a law-suit in the parish since he has lived among them : If any dispute arises, they apply themselves to him for the 10 decision ; if they do not acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once, or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a present of all the good Sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he 15 would pronounce one of them in the Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a series, that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical Divinity. As Sir Roger was going on in his story, the Gentleman we 20 were talking of came up to us ; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to morrow (for it was Saturday night) told us the Bishop of St. 'Asaph in the morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then shewed us his list of Preachers for the whole year, where I saw with a great deal of pleasure Arch- 25 bishop Tittotson, Bishop Saunderson, Doctor Barrow, Doctor Calamy, with several living Authors who have published Dis- courses of Practical Divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable man in the Pulpit, but I very much approved of my friend's insisting upon the qualifications of a good aspect and a clear 30 voice ; for I was so charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as the discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A Sermon repeated after this manner, is like the composition of a Poet in the mouth of a graceful Actor. THE SPECTATOR 123 I could heartily wish that more of our Country-clergy would follow this example ; and instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution, and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater Masters. This would not only be more easie to themselves, but more edifying to the people. N° 108. Wednesday, July 4. [17 11. J Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil agens. Phaed. As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger before his house, a country-fellow brought him a huge fish, which he told him, Mr. William Wimble had caught that very morning ; 10 and that he presented it, with his service to him, and intended to come and dine with him. At the same time he delivered a Letter, which my friend read to me as soon as the messenger left him. Sir Roger, " I desire you to accept of a Jack, which is the best I have 15 " caught this season. I intend to come and stay with you a "week, and see how the Perch bite in the Black river. I " observed with some concern, the last time I saw you upon the " Bowling-green, that your whip wanted a lash to it : I will " bring half a dozen with me that I twisted last week, which I 20 " hope will serve you all the time you are in the country. I " have not been out of the saddle for six days last past, having " been at Eaton with Sir John's eldest son. He takes to his " learning hugely. I am, SIR, Your humble Servant, Will. Wimble. 25 124 THE SPECTATOR This extraordinary letter, and message that accompanied it, made me very curious to know the character and quality of the Gentleman who sent them; which I found to be as follows. Will. Wimble is younger brother to a Baronet, and descended S of the ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between forty and fifty ; but being bred to no business and born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder brother as superintend- ent of his game. He hunts a pack of Dogs better than any man in the country, and is very famous for finding out a Hare. 10 He is extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man : he makes a May-Hy to a miracle ; and furnishes the whole country with Angle-rods. As he is a good-natured officious fellow, and very much esteemed upon account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a iS good correspondence among all the Gentlemen about him. He carries a Tulip-root in his pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite sides of the county. Will is a par- ticular favourite of all the young Heirs, whom he frequently 20 obliges with a Net that he has weaved, or a Setting-dog that he has made himself : he now and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to their mothers or sisters ; and raises a great deal of mirth among them, by enquiring as often as he meets them how they wear ? these Gentleman-like manufactures and 25 obliging little humours, make Will the darling of the country. Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him, when [we] 1 saw him make up to us with two or three hazle-twigs in his hand that he had cut in Sir Roger's woods, as he came through them, in his way to the house. I was very much pleased to 30 observe on one side the hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir Roger received him, and on the other the secret joy which his guest discovered at sight of the good old Knight. After the first salutes were over, Will desired Sir Roger to lend him !So SandC; T has "he." THE SPECTATOR 125 one of his servants to carry a set of shuttle-cocks he had with him in a little box to a Lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it seems he had promised such a present for above this half year. Sir Roger's back was no sooner turned, but honest Will began to tell me of a large cock-pheasant that he had 5 sprung in one of the neighbouring woods, with two or three other adventures of the same nature. Odd and uncommon characters are the game that I look for, and most delight in ; for which reason I was as much pleased with the novelty of the person that talked to me, as he could be for his life with 10 the springing of a pheasant, and therefore listned to him with more than ordinary attention. In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner, where the Gentleman I have been speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the huge jack, he had caught, served up for the first 15 dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long account how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the bank, with several other particulars that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished conversation 20 for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a late invention of Will's for improving the quail-pipe. Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was secretly touched with compassion towards the honest Gentleman that had dined with us ; and could not but consider with a great 25 deal of concern, how so good an heart and such busie hands were wholly employed in trifles ; that so much humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much industry so little advantageous to himself. The same temper of mind and application to affairs might have recommended him to the 30 publick esteem, and have raised his fortune in another station of life. What good to his country or himself might not a trader or merchant have done with such useful though ordi- nary qualifications? 126 THE SPECTATOR Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother of a great family, who had rather see their children starve like Gentle- men, than thrive in a trade or profession that is beneath their quality. This humour fills several parts of Europe with pride 5 and beggary. It is the happiness of a trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, though uncapable of any liberal art or profession, may be placed in such a way of life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of their family : accordingly we find several citizens that were launched into the world with 10 narrow fortunes, rising by an honest industry to greater estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physick ; and that finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at "length to his own inventions. But certainly, however 15 improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade and com- merce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my Reader to compare what I have here written with what I have said in my twenty first Specu- 20 lation. N° no. Friday \ July 6. [17 n.] Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. Virg. At a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the ruins of an old Abby, there is a long walk of aged elms ; which are shot up so very high, that when one passes under them,, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them seem to be 25 cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who supplies the wants of his whole creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the Psalms, feedeth the young ravens that call upon him. I like this retirement the THE SPECTATOR 127 better, because of an ill report it lyes under of being haunted; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living creature ever walks in it besides the Chaplain. My good friend the Butler desired me with a very grave face not to venture my self in it after sun-set, for that one of the footmen had 5 been almost frighted out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without an head; to which he added, that about a month ago one of the maids coming home late that way with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among the bushes that she let it fall. 10 I was taking a walk in this place last night between the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to appear in. The ruines of the abby are scattered up and down on every side, and half covered with ivy and elder bushes, the harbours 15 of several solitary birds which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. The place was formerly a church- yard, and has still several marks in it of graves and burying- places. There is such an Echo among the old ruines and vaults, that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, 'you 20 hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of elms, with the croaking of the ravens which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and ven- erable. These objects naturally raise seriousness and atten- tion : and when night heightens the awfulness of the place, 25 and pours out«her supernumerary norrors upon every thing in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions. Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the association of ideas, has very curious remarks to shew how by the prejudice of edu- 30 cation one idea often introduces into the mind a whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of things. Among several examples of this kind, he produces the following instance. The ideas of goblins and slights 128 THE SPECTATOR have really no more to do with darkness than light: yef let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives ; but darkness shall 5 ever afterward bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, thai he can no more bear the one than the other. As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terrour, 10 I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagi- nation that is apt to startle might easily have construed into a black horse without an head : and I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion. My friend Sir Roger has often told me with a great deal 15 of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up ; that noises had been heard in his long gal- lery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after 20 eight-a-clock at night ; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family, that a Butler had formerly hanged himself in it ; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either a husband, a son, or daughter 25 had died. The Knight seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his Chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means 30 dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family. I should not have been thus particular upon these ridicu- lous horrours, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of Ghosts and Spectres THE SPECTATOR 129 much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless. Could not I give my self up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations of • particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here add, that not only the Historians, to whom we may join the Poets, but like- wise the Philosophers of antiquity have favoured this opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the course of his Philosophy he 10 was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and that men have often appeared after their death. This I think very remarkable ; he was so pressed with the matter of fact which he could not have the confidence to deny, that he 15 was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphil- osophical notions that was ever started. He tells us, That the surfaces of all bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies, one after another ; and that these surfaces or thin cases that included each other whilst they were joined 20 in the body like the coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either dead or absent. I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus, not 25 so much for the sake of the story it self, as for the moral reflections with which the Author concludes it, and which I shaP here set down in his own words. "Glaphyra the " daughter of King Archilaus, after the death of her two first " husbands (bekig married to a third, who was brother to her 30 "first husband, and so passionately in love with her that he " turned off his former wife to make room for this marriage) " had a very odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw " her first husband coming towards her, and that she embraced 130 THE SPECTATOR " him with great tenderness ; when in the midst of the pleas- " ure which she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached *' her after the following manner : Glaphyra, says he, thou " hast made good the old saying, that women are not to be S "trusted. Was not I the husband of thy virginity? Havel "not children by thee? How couldst thou forget our loves " so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that " into a third, nay to take for thy husband a man who has so "shamelessly crept into the bed of his brother? However, 10 " for the sake of our passed loves, I shall free thee from thy " present reproach, and make thee mine for ever. Glaphyra " told this Dream to several women of her acquaintance, and "died soon after. I thought this story might not be imper- " tinent in this place, wherein I speak of those Kings : besides 15 " that, the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it con- " tains a most certain proof of the Immortality of the Soul, "and of divine Providence. If any man thinks these facts " incredible, let him enjoy his opinion to himself; but let " him not endeavour to disturb the belief of others, who by 20 " instances of this nature are excited to the study of Virtue. N° 112. Monday, July 9. [1711.] 'AtoraroD! fiiv irp&Ta deotis, p6/xp us did/carat, TIj*a Pyth. I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday ; and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is 25 certain the country-people would soon degenerate into a kind of Savages and Barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with THE SPECTATOR 131 their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join , together in adoration of the supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of 5 religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A country- fellow distinguishes himself as much in the Church-yard, as a Citizen does upon the'. Change, the whole parish-politicks 10 being generally discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings. My friend Sir Roger being* a good church-man, has beautified the inside of his church witb several texts of his own chusing : He has likewise given a hanidsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in 15 the communion-table at his own expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to his Restate he found his parishioners very irregular ; and that in or<$er to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a common-prayer-book; and at the same time employed an 20 itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms ; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the country churches that I have ever heard. As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps 25 them in very good order, and will suffer no body to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance he has been surprized into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servant to them. Several 30 other of the old Knight's particularities break out upon these occasions : Sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing-psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he -is pleased with the 132 THE SPECTATOR matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer ; and sornetimes stands up when every body else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his Tenants are missing. S I was yesterday very much surprized to hear my old friend, in the midst of the service, calling ou t to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and noj disturb the congregation. This John Matthews it seems is re ma rkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kickingjhis heels for his diversion. 10 This authority of the Knight, though exerted in that odd man- ner which accompanies him in all, circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish wno are not polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in hii^ehaviour ; besides that the general good sense and worthiness G f his character, make his iS friends observe these little singularities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good quality. As soon as the sermon is finjhed, no body presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of ^e church. The Knight walks down from his seat in the chance% e tween a double row of his 20 tenants, that stand bowing to hjn *